Today, UK’s The Last Dinner Party shares details of their debut album, Prelude To Ecstasy, which will be released on February 2nd, 2024 via Island Records. It was produced by James Ford in London, and will feature the breakthrough singles, “Nothing Matters”, “Sinner”, and “My Lady Of Mercy”. Pre-order the album HERE.
The Last Dinner Party on their debut album: “Ecstasy is a pendulum which swings between the extremes of human emotion, from the ecstasy of passion to the sublimity of pain, and it is this concept which binds our album together. This is an archeology of ourselves; you can exhume our collective and individual experiences and influences from within its fabric. We exorcised guitars for their solos, laid bare confessions directly from diary pages, and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life.“It is our greatest honour and pride to present this offering to the world, it is everything we are.”
To coincide with the album’s announcement, the band also share a new track, “On Your Side.” The band shares, “‘On Your Side’ is a love song with its hands tied. It’s about being so devoted to someone that no matter what they do, no matter how much it hurts, how much you know you should leave, you can’t escape. The outro came from a wonderful improvised moment in the studio; James Ford had this synthesizer that warped and delayed and played with the fabric of whatever you put into it. So Aurora and Abigail sat in the studio after lunch and improvised some piano and vocal lines, letting the sounds build on top of each other until that final gasp. It turned into this wrenching shimmering section that sounds like the end of a poisonous relationship; dissolving, fragmenting, painful but also ultimately freeing.”
The band are currently on a sold-out tour of the US in cities including DC, NYC, Philly, LA and Chicago. Full dates are below.
At the turn of the year, The Last Dinner Party was little more than a new name being shared amongst those who had caught them live. Great songs, a 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.
Following a heady first-on performance to a packed crowd at the new Woodsies tent at Glastonbury, The Last Dinner Party released Sinner, another gloriously infectious, leftfield pop song that fuelled the fully-formed zeitgeist and set the band up for a Summer that replicated the success of Glastonbury with uncomfortably packed tents ensuing at the likes of Green Man, Reading & Leeds, Latitude and End of the Road (interspersed with support slots to the likes of Florence & The Machine, Lana Del Rey and First Aid Kit). It was a breakthrough Summer for one of the most talked about new British acts in years, delivering on all that early promise emphatically.
Concentrating on their own headline shows, the band skipped confidentially from venue to venue, playing to bigger rooms and on wider stages. Shows sold out and shows were upgraded. In London alone, the band have moved from sell-out dates at Moth Club to Camden Assembly, Oslo to two nights at EartH, and now move on to the 3000-capacity Roundhouse on the eve of album release (remaining tickets on sale now). Crucially, it’s not just London where the band finds its early fans, but right across the UK and into America too, with all five debut shows selling out several weeks in advance.
The band often set a themed dress code for the shows, with many fans relishing the task of rising to the request and donning their finery for a night with their new heroes.
But this is no case of style over substance. The recent release of their 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 a 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.
The Last Dinner Party are: Abigail Morris – vocals / Aurora Nishevci – keys / Emily Roberts – lead guitar/flute / Georgia Davies – bass / Lizzie Mayland – guitar
The Last Dinner Party live:
2nd November – Bowery Ballroom, New York SOLD OUT
4th November – Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia SOLD OUT
6th November – El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles
9th November – Bottom Lounge, Chicago
26th November – Avicii Arena, Stockholm (w/ Hozier)
28th November – Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam (w/ Hozier)
29th November – Zenith, Paris (w/ Hozier)
2nd December – Velodrome, Berlin (w/ Hozier)
3rd December – Wiener Stadthalle, Vienna (w/ Hozier)
5th December – Sporthall, Hamburg (w/ Hozier)
6th December – Sportovni Hala Fortuna, Prague (w/ Hozier)
8th December – Forest National, Brussels (w/ Hozier)
10th December – M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool (w/ Hozier)
11th December – OVO Hydro, Glasgow (w/ Hozier)
13th December – Resorts World Arena, Birmingham (w/ Hozier)
15th December – OVO Wembley Arena, London (w/ Hozier)
17th December – SSE Arena, Belfast (w/ Hozier)
9th December – 3Arena, Dublin (w/ Hozier)
19th December – The Workman’s Club, Dublin SOLD OUT
20th December - 3Arena, Dublin (w/ Hozier)
2024:
30th January – The Fleece, Bristol re-arranged date SOLD OUT
1st February – The Roundhouse, London