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.