The Last Dinner Party - From The Pyre

The Last Dinner Party have had to grow up in public at a speed that turns most bands so skittish they fall right off the rails. A debut built like an opera house, a deluge of think-pieces about theatre versus authenticity, a live show that turned rooms into costume boxes, and then the migraine of trying to hold all that still while writing something new. The risk here wasn't collapse; it was repetition. You can survive the noise by doing more of everything that made it loud the first time. You can also suffocate the songs.

'From The Pyre' follows quickly enough that you almost expect corners to be cut; instead, it sounds like a group working out what to keep from their own myth and what to burn off. The theatre is still there, but it has been put to work. Arrangements have weight. Transitions feel planned rather than ornamental. The record steps forward with a kind of unshowy confidence that their debut only hinted at. In the studio, the brief was "more is more", with James Ford's parting note - have fun, be bold, make a classic - pinned to the wall, and Markus Dravs shaping that impulse into parts that interlock rather than preen.

What changes first is the sense of contact. The band still enjoy spectacle, but the frame has been tightened so the moving parts lock together. Drums are recorded to be felt as much as heard: firm kick, dry snare, fills that steer sections rather than flagging them. Basslines set the pace of a room. Keys carry the record's particular weather, a cool, chapel-like sheen that colours the edges without swallowing the centre. Guitars don't grandstand; they define space, add a silhouette to a chorus, then step away. Choral stacks appear often, but as structure, not gloss. It's a set designed to move, not just pose. The confidence is communal, five writers bolstering each other so the big gestures feel fearless rather than fussy.

The writing has also come into focus. Character pieces and allegory remain the band's preferred tools, yet the perspective has shifted so that lived feeling sits inside the costume rather than behind it. 'The Scythe' is the most explicit statement of that intent. It begins as if spoken quietly to one person and only gradually allows itself the lift of harmony. The melody returns to the same contour until a key change pushes it over the edge. What reads as restraint is really control: the song lands because nothing is allowed to blur it.

Opener 'Agnus Dei' does the opposite job with the same discipline. It comes in with a swagger, then narrows the lens to a clear line that settles the tempo for the rest of the record. You can hear how those choices ripple outward. When 'Rifle' arrives later, the guitars widen the frame for the chorus but leave air around the voice; the rhythm section holds the centre so the lift feels earned rather than inflated. Set-pieces are placed like staging cues rather than surprises. 'Rifle' drags unease into the open too - written in a moment of helplessness and sharpened by the horror of Gaza - so when the chorus raises its voice it sounds necessary, not theatrical.

Not everything is sombre. 'This Is The Killer Speaking' is built to travel. It's a swaggering story-song that never tips into pastiche because the structure keeps it honest. 'Second Best' is the short, sharp correction the middle of the album needs, the band resisting the urge to gild a hook that works on its own terms. 'Hold Your Anger' is a reminder that they can still snap when required; the lyric bites, the kit turns terse, and the payoff lands where you expect it to, which is precisely why it satisfies.

They're not announcing a new era so much as turning the era up - an anthology of little worlds that keeps the band's core intact while pushing the mundane to extremes. The record's themes are vast - transformation, judgement, the pressure that accumulates when people start paying attention - but the deliveries are precise. 'Woman Is A Tree' takes an image that could read as pure theatre and grounds it with pacing, while 'Count The Ways' thunders in with a sleazy 'AM'-era Arctic Monkeys-flavoured charge in the verses, then proceeds to float like a butterfly on the chorus. By the time closing track 'Inferno' turns up to take stock of what fame leaves behind, the album has earned a straight look rather than a flourish. The last impression is aftermath, not epilogue - messy, optimistic and open-ended.

Production choices adhere to that approach. You notice decisions, not decorations. A single held note in a backing part pulls a chorus across the bar. A room mic left just live enough gives gang vocals a human edge. Strings shade sections rather than force a sense of prestige. Across forty-odd minutes, the band avoid the trap of escalating for its own sake, but escalate they do, consistently earned, never forced. Hooks arrive without elbowing. Choruses carry more weight than they did last time. The allegory holds because the arrangements insist on proving it.

There are moments where confidence spills over into indulgence for a bar or two, but they pass quickly - not just because the sequencing is strict, but because indulgence is part of The Last Dinner Party's charm. A slower piece is followed by something fleet; a dense arrangement gives way to a clean one; the voice is allowed to sit bare before the choir returns. Those balances matter more than any single shock. They're why the record remains coherent while moving across a multitude of textures.

The headline is simple: this is a better-built album than their debut and a more affecting one. It isn't louder. It isn't grander. But it is surer. The result is a collection that justifies its scale one arrangement choice at a time, and that carries its imagery because the songs can hold it. 'From The Pyre' is theatrical where it needs to be and human where it counts; the stage is still set, but the music leads.