From The Pyre To The Real World, Stories Unafraid To Speak On Experiences Through An Allegorical Lens
Photo Credit: Laura Marie Cieplik
London five-piece The Last Dinner Party, is serving us a collection of theatrical, composition driven and 10 eclectic stories with their brand new record ‘From The Pyre’. After their breakout hit ‘Nothing Matters’ in 2023, the band has played sold out shows across the globe, drawing a passionate fan base and haven't slowed down since.
Although it has only been a year since the release of their debut record, ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ The Last Dinner Party is back with a collection of tracks written with rich imagery, and their unique sonic mix of maximalist composition. Sitting down with Emily Roberts and Georgia Davies from The Last Dinner Party via Zoom I was eager to get into the inner workings behind the album, from a band which has soundtrack the last year of my life.
‘This is the Killer Speaking’ and ‘Second Best’ were two tracks off the album which have been floating around the internet for around a year now, obtaining a “passionate cult following,” since playing them live on tour, said Davies. Both tracks fast paced in tempo and high in energy, I was drawn into these singles wondering if this pace would continue through the album. Though ‘The Scythe’ gives us a sense of slowly pulling back from the punch, giving us a pause for self reflection. Davies said these three singles were “a good way of introducing the themes of the second record and sort of how they differ from the first,” as well as an introduction to the different sonic space of the work.
Myself being a musical theatre kid at heart, I connected with how each track on the album follows a character driven narrative in the allegorical place of ‘The Pyre’. Seeing us be taken on a strong visual journey as a listener, using the backdrop of characters such as sailors, saints and cowboys.
Reflections on personal stories are told through these characters, which was “really retrospective,” in the development of this concept, said Davies. “The songs had already been written by the time we sort of realized that was what was taking place and we were sort of sitting down over dinner in Tokyo being like, what is this album? How does it connect? How can we explain? We know what it's about, but how can we sort of represent that in a visual way, to audiences?” she said. “It was so character driven and this sort of cheeky look back at oneself in the mirror and just like a little wink.”
“We realized [it] was sort of an attempt of turning your own stories into these myths and this sort of act of like a medieval traveling band … going around the world and telling their own stories.” “How that itself is like an act of reclamation of your own life and your own stories,” she said.
I asked if there was a certain thing that connected all of these stories together, outside of the fact they take place in the same allegorical world. Davies said a connection between tracks stems from “ the experience of being an artist and writing songs as an artist…It's much more self-aware about the fact that it's an album that's been written.” Davies says the tracks are also “connected by some elements of darkness” drawing back to the environment in which the album was written. “Not all of the songs are speaking about the world as it is now, but I think how we feel about the world and how dark it has become obviously sort of subconsciously permeates into a lot of the lyrics. But in ‘Rifles’ specifically, that is addressing the state of the world,” she said.
Something that drew me into the album was how the composition and make up of songs supported the key messages and themes. They experiment with building tension within their sound and aren't afraid to mix classical elements with rock, to really pack a punch into your listening experience. Roberts said throughout the process she found herself consciously coming to the thought of “ I wanna make this more catchy … I want this to be like a development in my personal part, from the first album.” “I was also thinking, how can I make this guitar part more catchy and more memorable?” “People just wanted to challenge themselves and do something they hadn't done before, like bringing very stacked choral parts or BV parts, making the guitar solos bigger and better than ever.” “I think it's just still very maximalist and it definitely got to a point where we were like okay, there's way too much going on at this point in time,” she said.
‘Sail Away’, a track written by fellow band members Abby and accompanied by Aurora on piano, was a track on first listen on the album that really stood out to me because of its simplicity, which as a fan of their maximalist production style stuck with me. “I think to have a song like that on the album for both musicians is a really vulnerable thing” says Davies “because normally we've had all of this musical support on each song.”
“We were all really sort of gunning for it just to be this like a Nick Cave, ‘Into My Arms’ sort of situation.” “For that reason it's such a standout track because we haven't done anything like that before and it's just so beautiful.” “It's one of my favorite songs on the record”, said Davies.
A standout element off of the album comes from its vocal arrangements, a collaboration of voices acting as an instrument of its own amongst the mix. Roberts said that the creation of the choral elements “was super arranged and super thought out, especially for ‘Woman Is A Tree’.” “The process was I just played the chords on guitar, with sort of a random timing. Also just building tension and then turned each of those notes in the guitar chord to a choral part.” “It became a choir instead of just strumming guitar chords,” she said. “I felt like [it] was quite an interesting way to work because it forced me down a route that was perhaps more technically challenging than it would be to just start with the choir.”
In honor of the album's release the band will be headed our way in January next year as a part of their 2026 Australia and New Zealand tour. I attended their Melbourne show on their last tour to Australia, and a moment that stuck with me was when looking back into the crowd of fans, there were less people ‘viewing the show through their phones’ instead choosing to visually connect with the band on stage.
When telling them about this moment, Roberts said “ That's really nice to hear, it's not something that I actually notice.” “We've never really been a TikTok band,” she said, “apart from ‘Nothing Matters’, we don't really have any viral sort of moments where people just know like a couple of lines and they get their phones up just for that and I'm really glad that that's not the case.”
"We have five minute songs and it just doesn't lend itself to Tik Tok and that kind of consumption and it just means that we can take people along for the whole journey.” With the band's last tour landing in an Australian winter, they are keen to experience a true Aussie summer this time round, with Davies also being originally from Sydney. “ I am biased because I am a Sydney girl, so obviously playing in Sydney is always really good and emotional for me because my family can come and they don't really get to do that so often because we're almost always in Europe.” Davies says to come back with “everyone in the actual summer where we can go to the beach and go have barbecues at my parents place,” is something that will be excellent.
