The Last Dinner Party

About The Last Dinner Party

The Last Dinner Party emerged from London in 2021 as a five-piece fronted by Abigail Morris, with Georgia Davies on bass, Lizzie Mayland on guitar, Emily Roberts on lead guitar, and Aurora Nishevci on keys. They met at King's College London and managed to avoid the typical indie landfill fate by leaning into something more theatrical and unashamedly ornate.

Their early tracks channeled a kind of baroque pop energy that felt deliberately out of step with what most guitar bands were doing. While everyone else was mining the early 2000s for inspiration, The Last Dinner Party looked further back to glam rock, art pop, and the kind of dramatic arrangements that went out of fashion sometime around 1975. Songs like "Nothing Matters" and "Sinner" arrived with string sections and vocal melodies that didn't apologize for being grandiose.

The hype built quickly through 2023. They signed to Island Records and released their Prelude to Ecstasy EP, which became one of those rare cases where the industry buzz actually matched what the band was delivering. "My Lady of Mercy" got them on Later... with Jools Holland. BBC Sound of 2024 longlisted them. The attention was intense and immediate in a way that can either launch a band or crush them before they've figured out who they are.

Their debut album Prelude to Ecstasy landed in February 2024 and went straight to number one in the UK. It's a record that commits fully to its own aesthetic, for better or worse. The production is lush, sometimes bordering on overwhelming. Morris sings about desire and religion and femininity with the kind of earnestness that reads as either refreshing or overcooked depending on your tolerance for drama. "Burn Alive" and "Caesar on a TV Screen" showcase their ability to build tension and release it in ways that feel genuinely cathartic rather than just loud.

They drew comparisons to everyone from Kate Bush to Suede to Florence and the Machine, which is both flattering and reductive. What they actually sound like is a band that studied those references and came out the other side with something that doesn't quite belong to any particular era. The string arrangements and layered vocals give them a density that's rare for a debut.

The backlash arrived almost as quickly as the praise, which is standard for any UK band that gets big before they've paid their dues in the accepted way. Some of the criticism was fair, some was just the usual tall poppy syndrome. They've spent 2024 touring extensively, playing festivals and working out how their studio sound translates to stages of increasing size.

Where they go from here depends largely on whether they double down on the maximalism or strip things back for album two. Either choice will alienate someone.

See The Last Dinner Party Live