THE LAST DINNER PARTY

Prelude to Ecstasy (Vinyl LP)

Island Records
Vinyl LP
Forget hardcore, cottagecore is here and it's taking names! London quintet The Last Dinner Party are, as The Guardian's live review noted, "Dressed in an array of corsets, billowing blouses and petticoats" and have a sound that's just as theatrical. A dramatic departure from the conscious jazz or urgent post-punk we're hearing in droves from the Motherland, The Last Dinner Party have an "if it ain't baroque, don't fix it" attitude to songwriting. Prelude To Ecstasy is a refreshing burst of fresh sound, at once confessional and intimate, orchestral and grand, and there's even a song sung in Albanian in case you weren't already intrigued. - Flying Out


Without doubt Last Dinner Party will be the sound of 2024. Their debut album Prelude to Ecstasy is released via Island Records. It was produced by James Ford in London, and features the breakthrough singles, Nothing Matters, Sinner, and My Lady Of Mercy.

At the turn of 2023, The Last Dinner Party was little more than a new name being shared amongst those that had caught them live. Great songs, strong aesthetic. Having spent much of 2022 writing those songs, road-testing them, and then taking them into the studio, it wasn’t until April when the band released the instantly more-ish, dark guitar-pop of Nothing Matters that seemingly everyone had now formed an opinion on them. It was an introduction that took the online world by storm, and yet behind all the excitement and narrative was a fantastically confident indie-rock song by a band doing it the old-fashioned way, out on the road.

Third single, My Lady Of Mercy, an almost gothic, haunting rock song, and now with this atmospheric and anthemic ballad, On Your Side, the band’s songwriting is testament to all the buzz and excitement already accumulated. As it should be. Rather than wilt under the spotlight, they’ve arguably become a tighter, stronger unit because of it.

"Prelude to Ecstasy is a pendulum which swings between the extremes of human emotion, from the ecstasy of passion to the sublimity of pain, and it is this concept which binds our album together. This is an archeology of ourselves; you can exhume our collective and individual experiences and influences from within its fabric. We exorcised guitars for their solos, laid bare confessions directly from diary pages, and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life. It is our greatest honour and pride to present this offering to the world, it is everything we are." - The Last Dinner Party

Prelude To Ecstasy is both the closing of that introductory chapter and the opening of the next. The Last Dinner Party? Believe the hype.

Tracklisting:

1. Prelude To Ecstasy
2. Burn Alive
3. Caesar on a TV Screen
4. The Feminine Urge
5. On Your Side
6. Beautiful Boy
7. Gjuha
8. Sinner
9. My Lady of Mercy
10. Portrait of a Dead Girl
11. Nothing Matters
12. Mirror