To say The Last Dinner Party have had a quick rise to fame is something of an understatement. Barely known fifteen months ago, over the course of five singles released over the last year, they have become a very big deal indeed, and there’s a lot resting on their debut album. Not least because they have already won the Rising Brit Award and topped the BBC Sound Of 2024 poll. No pressure then…
There’s been a lot of very positive reviews appearing for this album, and I am pleased to be able to add to them. Over the course of forty minutes or so, Prelude To Ecstasy reveals itself to be a very accomplished and stylish album, all the more so because it is a debut. If you’ve heard any (or hopefully all) of those five preceding singles, and they’re all here, the quality continues here.
Generally being filed under indie at the moment, it should be noted that there’s a whole lot of creativity going on, and that these very talented individuals are not the meat and two veg kind of slop that still gets flung at us under that label. Artists I might draw parallels with would include St. Vincent, Janelle Monae and Anna Calvi. Not because I think they sound like a great deal like any of them, but because this is closer to art-rock, and very individual. Right from the opening, instrumental title track, this is something that grabs you and you’ll want to play over and over again.
See, not only is it creative – but there’s a lot of intelligence at play here. I realise that that word seems to unnerve a lot of people, possibly because of its associations with the worst excesses of 70’s prog-rock, but the band can cover many styles often within a song. Impressively, they do this and still create anthems that it is no feat of imagination to be able to see crowds of people belting out at gigs and festivals. Sure there’ll be the delight of the line ‘And you can hold me like he held her/And I will fuck you like nothing matters‘ (the last time I remember a lyric being so oft-quoted was the line ‘On the escalator you shit paracetamol‘ from Suede‘s ‘My Insatiable One.’) – but there’s many more here.
So, there’s substance that matches the style here. I’d be amazed if this doesn’t debut at no.1 in the album charts next week, because they deserve every bit of success that comes their way. Yet, there’s a bit of cynicism I feel needs to be countered before it can start, and it has nothing to do with the band. Firstly, because there’s five successful, talented people making this, the risk of some misogynistic types coming out of the woodwork to insist that obviously they must be manufactured and it’s not them playing on the record. Grrr..but you know it happens. The other is to do with the fact there’s been so much praise shown their way that the tall poppy syndrome, so endemic in these islands will kick in and rather like Wet Leg are experiencing at the moment (undeservedly, in my opinion) those who will say they love this album today and claim they never liked them next year. These types are inevitable – but they are wholly and utterly wrong.
A triumph!
