Albums of the Year 2024 - Number 5

Rough Trade On the Rise, February Album of the Month, winners of the BRIT Rising Star Award. The Last Dinner Party have been the word on everyone's lips in 2024. Their debut album is a real baroque pop rager, taking inspiration from the band's favourite romantic poets to rip into ideas of gender, identity and femininity with sharp storytelling. The album's unpredictable tempo could take cues from Bowie’s finest glam rock moments and the swooping, dramatic vocals are reminiscent of the haunting melodies of Kate Bush. An early contender for the top spot of all end-of-year lists for sure. - Georgia, Rough Trade Office | Albums of the Year So Far 2024

Without doubt Last Dinner Party will be the sound of 2024. Their debut album Prelude To Ecstasy is released via Island Records. It was produced by James Ford in London, and features the breakthrough singles, “Nothing Matters”, “Sinner”, and “My Lady Of Mercy”.

At the turn of 2023, The Last Dinner Party was little more than a new name being shared amongst those that had caught them live. Great songs, strong aesthetic. Having spent much of 2022 writing those songs, road-testing them, and then taking them into the studio, it wasn’t until April when the band released the instantly more-ish, dark guitar-pop of Nothing Matters that seemingly everyone had now formed an opinion on them. It was an introduction that took the online world by storm, and yet behind all the excitement and narrative was a fantastically confident indie-rock song by a band doing it the old-fashioned way, out on the road.

Third single, My Lady Of Mercy, an almost gothic, haunting rock song, and now with this atmospheric and anthemic ballad, On Your Side, the band’s songwriting is testament to all the buzz and excitement already accumulated. As it should be. Rather than wilt under the spotlight, they’ve arguably become a tighter, stronger unit because of it.

Prelude To Ecstasy is both the closing of that introductory chapter and the opening of the next. The Last Dinner Party? Believe the hype.

Bonus CD

5 exclusive versions of the album recorded with Orchestra at iconic Church Studios in London.