The Last Dinner Party – From The Pyre: Album Review

Live4ever 22 October, 2025

Artwork for The Last Dinner Party album From The Pyre

4 stars hq

From The Pyre builds on the foundations of The Last Dinner Party’s debut album and shows their growth across the last year.

The Last Dinner Party have had a great few years.

Alongside winning BRIT Awards for Rising Star and Best New Artist, their debut album Prelude To Ecstasy was nominated for a Mercury Prize.

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Given the commercial reception, it seems evident that there would be anticipation and excitement from critics and fans to see what they would do next.

The band chose to develop and mature their theatrical sound for this second album, a choice which serves them well. As explained in the press release, these songs have been in their back pocket pre-debut, evolving and growing alongside the band until they were ready to reach the mainstream.

From The Pyre is darker and rawer than their first album, stripping away the opulence of fame to reveal the struggles of the real people behind the celebrity persona.

For a band to achieve commercial success in the same year as their debut album is a big achievement, although going from unknown to celebrity relatively quickly must be a jarring process.

From The Pyre’s production is really solid. The Last Dinner Party are able to showcase their range; they can be soft and stripped back (Sail Away) or loud and defiant (Count The Ways).

Their sound is reminiscent of late 70’s to early 80’s rock and pop; it mixes nostalgia with modern references. They have matured their sound in the last year to reflect the darker atmosphere they were aiming for.

Abigail Morris’ distinctive vocals sound great throughout as she sings in a style that has the whimsy of Kate Bush mixed with the power of Florence Welch (Morris’ high notes are also reminiscent of Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell).

She has a wide range and can pull off the theatricality needed to perform The Last Dinner Party’s signature sound.

Lead guitarist Emily Roberts kicks off the album with a catchy opening riff on Agnus Dei. Harkening back to the nostalgic production, her guitar on Count The Ways is immediately reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain.

Roberts’ musicality stands out and her guitar solos provide another layer of complexity to the production.

Where the album really shines is the band’s lyricism, drawing on folklore and mythology to demonstrate their personal life experiences.

Each song draws upon imagery like a mini film, exploring at times heavy subject matter. On This Is the Killer Speaking, Morris sings of being ghosted over an instrumentation that’s come straight from a John Wayne-era Western.

The haunting vocals on Woman Is A Tree transport the listener into a scene of a cult ritual in a folk horror (it’s a powerful yet eerie track).

Album closer Inferno plays on the archetype of Joan of Arc, a resistant woman in a patriarchal society executed on a pyre. The album title itself plays into the imagery of violence and chaos.

From The Pyre is a successful sophomore album for The Last Dinner Party, building on the foundations of their debut and showing their growth across the last year.

They are theatrical, experimental musicians marking their own line in alternative rock and pop, and while at times they lean into melodrama, it’s all part of their charm and flair.

Lauren Scott

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Tags:Lauren Scott, The Last Dinner Party