The all-female group shook up the indie world last year – their second record, From the Pyre, is a dazzling gothic catharsis
Bridgerton and Downton Abbey have nothing on the Last Dinner Party when it comes to pyrotechnic petticoats and pedal-to-the-floor melodrama. The all-female indie band arrived in a powder-flash of top-level costumery and belting anthems when their debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, topped the charts in February 2024. It was a dizzying calling card, but one accompanied by the nastiest and most protracted backlashes in alternative music since the build ’em up, tear ’em down heyday of the rock press in the 1990s.
Snark and success have an unfortunate habit of going hand-in-hand in the music business. So it was little surprise that the London-based quintet were hauled over the social coals when it emerged that several of the group were privately educated.
This backlash had an inevitably sexist component. Strangers on the internet picked their personalities apart online in a way they never would with Ed Sheeran or Mumford & Sons. While they don’t directly address that pile-on in their fantastically maximalist second album From the Pyre, the stress of being reduced to two-dimensional social media villains is nonetheless discernible on the shrieking choral intro to “Woman is a Tree” and on whispered ballad “Sail Away”.
As with Prelude to Ecstasy, the record is loaded with baroque bangers that suggest a sort of gothic Sophie Ellis-Bextor, to which they have added a new fascination with old-school English folk horror. It’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” meets The Blood on Satan’s Claw.
Thrills, chills and frills are fused to a barnstorming effect on a record that blends indie exuberance, existential dread and the band’s now trademark vintage dress sense. The delightful message is that, come what may, frock ’n’ roll will never die.
The new folk horror component is announced by cover artwork that combines the creepy vibes of Florence Pugh’s Midsommar and the sword and sorcery absurdity of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The observer’s attention is commanded by singer Abigail Morris, cradling a lamb and gazing witheringly towards the camera. Above her, menacing figures dance around a bonfire. To her left, guitarist Emily Roberts is done up as a sort of thrift-store Arthurian knight.
Subtlety doesn’t get a look in and the idea that more is always more extends to the music. Nuance isn’t so much chucked out the window as blasted into space on opener “Agnus Dei”. The title translates as “Lamb of God” (hence Morris and her pet sheep) and refers to a Christian liturgical prayer dating from the Middle Ages. Kicking off with a swirl of glam-rock guitars, it finds Morris standing on London Bridge experiencing a vision of the world about to end – an image that sets the tone for the super-sized prog-pop to follow across 10 satisfyingly over-the-top tunes.
But for all the angst, From the Pyre is ultimately tremendous fun: there’s lots of wit and shin-kicking glee to go with the fear and the fury. “You break into my house/I’ll break into your house,” teases a deadpan Morris on the eccentric “Count the Ways” – a quirky number that evokes the comedic weirdness of her heroes Sparks. But she then morphs into a rock ’n’ roll (killer) queen on roiling chugger “This is the Killer Speaking”, where she fantasises about getting one over a former lover simply by haunting their dreams.
Amongst all the bombast, more earnest moments stand out like a funeral suit at a pyjama party. “Does it feel good, spilling blood?” wonders Morris on the grungy “Rifle” – a cathartic dirge informed by headlines about Gaza and the rise of the military-industrial complex.
A dazzling record concludes with the plaintive “Inferno”, where 1970s soft rock piano and doomy lyrics (“I’m Joan of Arc/ I’m dying”) brings to mind Elton John soundtracking Game of Thrones. Amid what must have been a fair degree of pressure, they’ve rustled up an unforgettable Pyre.
Stream: “Count the Ways”, “Inferno”
