The Last Dinner Party: Prelude to Ecstasy

London’s alt rockers “The Last Dinner Party” are sweeping the globe in a parade of synth and sapphic romance. Not since the Spice Girls has the US seen a mania for a girl group from Great Britain. The young upstarters have made a name for themselves despite only just releasing their first album in February of 2024.

 The muses combine 90’s Westwood Esque aestheticism and 80’s pop with a heavy nod to neoclassicalism in their latest phenomenon “Prelude to Ecstacy.” 

Performing alongside the likes of Hozier, the muses skyrocketed in popularity overnight. TikTok circulated the group’s enigmatic performance of “Nothing Matters” where the group gained a massive following and have continued to grow in numbers. 

The band consists of Abigail Morris, Lizzie Mayland, Emily Roberts, Georgia Davies, and Aurora Nishevci. Five friends of friends from university who’ve become some of the biggest symbols in queer music. Representing multiple letters of the LGBTQ the girl / non binary group have cemented themselves as cornerstones within western and european music. 

The Last Dinner Party pulls from Britain’s Tudor era both aesthetically and sonically. These are the creative minds western music has lacked. Forming their debut album around one of the most iconic historical eras of their homeland as well as the seamless blend of western synth and british rock is ingenious.

The band composes original scores incorporating philharmonics, harpsichords, and live symphonies to bring the tracks like “Prelude to Ecstasy” alive. 

 People can’t get enough of The Last Dinner Party because they have brought something fresh to our table littered with consumer programmed goods. 

The third single “Cesar on a TV Screen” paints a clear picture of male fragility and the need to be seen as powerful in the eyes of other men. The songstresses take on the overexaggerated persona of the tyrannical man in a tongue in cheek power ballad poking fun at the over inflated male ego.

 “And i’m falling like the leaves of Leningrad…I follow your footprints when I can’t hold your hand”  

The Last Dinner Party strips the tsarist approach to relationships down to its misogynistic roots.

Sung in Albanian, the tragically overlooked track “Gjuha” meaning ‘language’ is performed by non binary keyboardist, Aurora Nishevci, reflecting on shame stemming from not knowing their mother tongue well. This hauntingly beautiful ballad is a stand alone on the primarily upbeat pop record. Using eastern european strings and chamber choir backings “Gjuha” sounds straight out of the halls of an Albanian Orthodox Church.

Sapphic, sexy, and sacreligious “My Lady of Mercy” is a girlie pop-thrash-metal-british-rock-opera that draws on biblical and classic literary themes to paint a picture of the complicated nature of queerness. Finding ways to amplify queer joy and encompassing the catastrophic nature of teen anguish “My Lady of Mercy” is a clear identifier of The Last Dinner Party as a headlining figure in queer music.