IIt’s hard to think of the last time a band chose to open their debut album with an orchestral overture. But this is the beginning of his party’s debut, Last Dinner. Woodwinds, brass, and strings are increased to 11, further embellished with crashing cymbals and shimmering harps. It’s so epic that even the director of a 1950s Hollywood blockbuster would have suggested that the soundtrack composer turn it down a little. It’s also bold enough to seem faintly provocative, but if you were at The Last Dinner, you’d probably feel confident too. They start 2024 by winning both this year’s BBC Sound of Awards and the Blitz Rising Star gong. They have risen inexorably over the past 12 months. They began selling out shows within nine minutes of releasing a song, and were lavished with praise from everyone from Florence Welch to Garth Crooks, who described them as “a great group of young women. I was tempted to interrupt an episode of Football Focus to say they’re doing a really great job (“exciting pop music”) and have survived the inevitable accusations of being an “industry factory.” . It was once a press that seemed to be as much a part of the artist’s rapid advancement in the 21st century as the breathtaking coverage in weekly music magazines that this band will change your life.
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Still, I can see why people look dubious at The Last Supper. They seem to have arrived fully equipped, but it’s no more sinister than the result of a desperate woodshedding during the corona period when there are no live shows: they look great and full of ideas; tend to announce dress codes for their shows – Victoriana, Brothers Grimm, Velvet Goldmine – a clever way to elevate a show from the ordinary and create a sense of IRL community. Their debut single “Nothing Matters” features a chorus so nail-biting that I could imagine a field full of festival-goers howling along to it on first listen. I could do it. Prelude to Ecstasy is well done, with a string arrangement that isn’t as dramatic as the intro suggests, a glossy sheen and some nice touches courtesy of James Ford, On Your Side in it. Boasting a long, shoegaze-like, bending-tone coda that concludes the album, it doesn’t seem all that different from the video of their third show, which was posted on YouTube and sparked a flurry among major labels and management companies.
Its sound is really impressive. If the whole dress code theme vaguely reminds you of Roxy Music in the mid-’70s, Roxy Music didn’t explicitly announce how their audience should dress, but their gigs included Bryan Ferry It might as well have been, given that there was a crowd in place that adamantly copied the outfits worn by . That week – Musically, the most apt comparison might be Roxy’s glam-era contemporaries Sparks. There’s a clear hint of Russell Mael in Abigail Morris’ more rococo vocal brilliance, and The Last Dinner Party’s willingness to change tempos mid-song and juxtapose musical genres. The duo seems to have a penchant for high drama. Pop along with the powerful hard rock grind. Sinner transitions from his staccato piano to his itchy Franz-like post-Ferdinand style. It shows a sharp pop sensibility, and includes a surprising number of solos that The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins hailed as “proper guitar solos”. Lead guitarist Emily Roberts favors the impressive, stadium-ready Ax Hero with its soaring edge.
Operatic, cut-glass vocals, sudden shifts in mood and tempo, big guitar solos, and lyrics that turn relationship woes into jump-scare crime dramas (“There’s blood in my lip gloss now”) , “I wish I had given you”) “You’re a courtesy to rip my throat out”, “I’m a dark red liver stretched out on a rock”): As you can imagine, the timpani in literally seconds There are moments when all of this gets a little too much, like when “Into Mirror” or “Beautiful Boy” veers a little too close to musical theater for its own sake. But it doesn’t happen that often. Mainly because Prelude to Ecstasy is filled with really well-written songs. The rhythmic and stylistic transitions are handled so smoothly that they never feel episodic or meandering. All the deforestation seems to have left them with both an enviable melodic guarantee and an abundance of great choruses: Nothing Matters, but also Feminine Urge, Burn Alive, – percussive or not – Mirror.
Of course, you will face the problems that every band that arrives fully formed faces. If you show up with your sound, your image, your songs, where do you go next? But Prelude to Ecstasy is fun and makes you think you’ll come up with just as many ideas next time. Full of ideas. The Last Supper’s confidence may not come from the hype they’ve generated, but from the fact that they’re in the know. How wonderful they are!
What Alexis listened to this week
Fabiana Palladino – Stay with Me Through the Night
Somewhere between smooth soul and Natalie Plath’s singer-songwriter approach, the song is subtly funky and self-possessed.
