Not much says “I’m kind of a big deal” like a full orchestral introduction to a debut album. London quintet The Last Dinner Party are this year’s buzziest band, already the recipients of both the Brits Rising Star and the BBC Sound of 2024 awards. But that only means that the music industry itself has predicted their success, and in the age of TikTok-powered boom and bust, those prizes don’t seem to be as much of a guarantee of fame and fortune as they were once. Sam Fender, who was given the Brit in 2019, is the most recent artist to have turned it into what looks like lasting glory.
The quintet certainly look the part – imagine the Brontë sisters formed an indie band and went on tour to Whitby Goth Weekend – and have thrown absolutely everything at these 12 songs with full intention of living up to the hype. Opening up with keyboardist Aurora Nischevi aping the drama of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on the classical Prelude, they’re quickly on to the spy theme bombast of Burn Alive and the hyperbolic sleaze rock of Caesar On A TV Screen. “When I was a child, I never felt like a child/I felt like an emperor with a city to burn,” claims singer Abigail Morris, whose fruity vocals and appetite for wild imagery are key elements of the feeling of exhausting excess throughout.
On The Feminine Urge, she’s “A dark red liver stretched out on a rock.” On Burn Alive, she’s “at the stake, petrol my perfume,” while on Portrait of a Dead Girl, she’s saying to a wolf-like lover: “I wish you had given me the courtesy of ripping out my throat.” Yikes.
The Pre-Raphaelite rock of Florence + the Machine is an obvious influence. It was Florence Welch who was filmed presenting them with the BBC award in a clear passing of a torch. Also audible is the extravagant silliness of Sparks on the debut single, Nothing Matters, and the anything-goes art rock gear changes of Roxy Music.
It all sounds very ambitious and precocious but it doesn’t sound like there’s an obvious future classic here. There are great moments, as when Portrait of a Dead Girl reaches its grandiose chorus, and Sinner bounces into life with its springy guitar line. Still, too many songs sound awkwardly Frankensteined together out of mismatched parts. The band make a lot of noise but don’t quite convince yet.
