The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy

The Last Dinner Party has been demanding more and more attention from the general masses within the past year, filling out festival tents and scoring a hit with Nothing Matters. Emanating from their live sets, including opening for acts like Florence + The Machine and Hozier, is the sure feeling that this is a band who knows itself, is confident in their message and is deserving of fanaticism. It follows, then, that their debut album Prelude to Ecstasy backs this up with the force of an ocean. It is truly a sublime album, filled to the brim with rich storytelling, haunting themes and gothic rock anthems. To listen to this record is an immersive experience, one that calls for goosebumps in dark candle-lit rooms.

Opening an album with an entirely instrumental track isn’t revolutionary, but Prelude makes it feel like it is. The orchestral sounds sink you in immediately and it feels like the start of an epic movie. If you were unsure before, you’re in deep now. It flows through to Burn Alive, a formidable follow-up with 80s-style synths and unbeatable vocals from Abigail Morris. The lyrics drill home their commitment to their aesthetic; visions of candle wax and sacrificial ceremony add to the theatricality of it all.

Throughout the album lurks a feeling of heightened emotion, the idea of all or nothing, with raw lyrics, clearly straight from leather-bound diaries, backed up by tense and atmospheric rushes of sound. They allow you to sit inside the music, especially in the ballad On Your Side, and its effect is undeniable. Guitars star throughout, the solos in Sinner and Nothing Matters are spell-binding.

There isn’t a dull moment in the album; Beautiful Boy sits in the middle tracklist spot and ensures this. The words are tenderly powerful, a yearning poem on the traps of maleness and femininity. The music behind it feels both tragic and hopeful, an overwhelming musical feat. The storytelling continues throughout, notably in Portrait of a Dead Girl, where Morris’s nostalgic voice captures the listener in a trance.

Prelude to Ecstasy ends spectacularly with Mirror, a theatrical joy, full of chilling strings and haunting synths. From top to bottom, Prelude to Ecstasy is ambitiously fantastical, biting and melodramatic, leaving absolutely nothing on the dark wood table. Instead, it leaves one gawking, desperate for more.

Talitha Stowell
Image:Cal McIntyre

Prelude to Ecstasy is released on 2^nd February 2024. For further information or to order the album visit The Last Dinner Party’s website here.

Watch the video for the single Caesar on a TV Screen here: