The Last Dinner Party announce second album ‘From the Pyre’ and share lead single ‘This is the Killer Speaking’

The Last Dinner Party have announced details of their second album From the Pyre, as well as sharing the lead single ‘This is the Killer Speaking’.

The lead track from the London band’s second album leans into a huge country-pop tinged chorus and comes ahead of the full record arriving on 17 October via Island Records.

The band headed into the studio early this year with Grammy Award-winning producer Markus Dravs (Wolf Alice, Florence + the Machine, Björk) to start work on the follow-up to their Number One debut album, 2024’s Prelude to Ecstasy.

According to an official release, the record is “the sound of a band having a lot of fun rather than feeling any innate pressure to follow-up on what was an explosively successful debut record. It’s also the sound of a young band developing and maturing their songwriting together, as tight a unit as the endless months out on the road pay testament to.”

Speaking of the record, the band said: “This record is a collection of stories, and the concept of album-as-mythos binds them. ‘The Pyre’ itself is an allegorical place in which these tales originate, a place of violence and destruction but also regeneration, passion and light. 

“The songs are character driven but still deeply personal, a commonplace life event pushed to pathological extreme. Being ghosted becomes a Western dance with a killer, and heartbreak laughs into the face of the apocalypse. Lyrics invoke rifles, scythes, sailors, saints, cowboys, floods, Mother Earth, Joan of Arc, and blazing infernos. We found this kind of evocative imagery to be the most honest and truthful way to discuss the way our experiences felt, giving each the emotional weight it deserves.

They added: “This record feels a little darker, more raw and more earthy; it takes place looking out at a sublime landscape rather than seated an opulent table. It also feels metatextual and cheeky in places, like a knowing look reflected back at ourselves.” 

It comes after the group scored two BRIT Awards (including Breakthrough Artist earlier this year), and sold out a UK tour including three hometown shows at London’s Eventim Apollo. Last year also saw guitarist Lizzie Mayland release their debut solo EP.

From the Pyre tracklisting: 

‘Agnus Dei’
‘Count the Ways’
‘Second Best’
‘This Is the Killer Speaking’
‘Rifle’
‘Woman is a Tree’
‘Hold Your Anger’
‘Sail Away’
‘The Scythe’
‘Inferno’