My album review on The Last Dinner Party latest record.
Whereas Prelude To Ecstasy immediately hits you on first listen, From The Pyre is a little slower but gets better with every listen.
The first record might have been rough around the edges, their latest album feels like a finetuned version of what TLDP did on their debut. It’s a good thing to see the growth with the band, but I do think things got lost in translation. For example, the albums are pretty similar and I am afraid that this is a risk they took, because a sound can get stale especially since the releases were quite soon after one another. It doesn’t help that From The Pyre doesn’t contain a lot of tracks that come across as immediately snappy and melodic. The record is asking the audience to be patient, which makes sense because the message behind this album is more nuanced and ambitious.
Honestly, I hate to compare works of art from the same artist. All their works are chapters in their life. However, as a listener I couldn’t help but look at these both works, just because I want to understand their growth and why I feel the way I feel about the new album. TLDP’s debut was very straightforward with their lyrics, their latest release has stepped up the game with not serving the whole meal at once, but rather feeding the listener with small courses in time. Actually that makes Prelude To Ecstasy the afternoon snack doesn’t it?
This is the killer speaking was a track that immediately stood out to me and actually signifies what I just mentioned. You wouldn’t guess from the title that it is about someone who ghosted you, so you became the “killer”, how clever! The energetic tempo changes and burst of instrumentation that comes through on the chorus makes this song very moody and quickly understood.
Of course, here and there you do have the straightforward rockers like Count The Ways, but there are many more tracks on this album where the band explores song structure and dynamics extending things out into these winding progressions and huge instrumental climaxes. The results of this move can be a hit or miss, like on the song Rifle, which suffers from underwhelming verses. Even though the contrast into the choruses the song presents amazing howling group vocals.
The album lacks a clear direction in details because they got lost in the details. Creating a work of art is constantly zooming in and out of the bigger picture of work to the details. Translation between the two gets easily lost.
A great example is Woman is a Tree, which doesn’t feel like a song as much as it does like a soundtrack piece or an interlude that was extended out a bit too long. The sharp message and melody there is, gets lost in the grandiosity of it all.
While I find myself being critical of this album, I do have a soft spot for The Last Dinner Party. Knowing that they had to change producers due to illness can’t have helped the band in progressing. Also it doesn’t help that in the current state of the world it’s very much: you snooze, you lose mentality, which offers artists no grace to take their time creating new work. I do hope we get to a certain point in time where artists can take their time, so they do get the chance to develop more memorable, hardhitting songs and grow and advance their sound.
Even though debut remains my favourite from The Last Dinner Party… From The Pyre felt like an elevation beyond what they did on Prelude To Ecstasy when it comes down to delivering grander displays of instrumentation and layers.
Love,
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