The Last Dinner Party’s rise to fame could be described as something of a baptism of fire. Their arrival as a fully formed band, confident in their sound and approach, stoked both massive hype and hate – either end of the spectrum overwhelming and seemingly unescapable. On their second album, ‘From The Pyre’, which was released last month, they share stories from the heart of the flames.
‘From The Pyre’ is an “end of the world” album of sorts. In one sense, “the pyre” is their metaphor for the apocalyptic state of the world right now, seen through the eyes of a band that’s been vocal about its horrors. Equally, it’s a reflection on the end of their own world – the one they knew before their rocket ship to fame exploded their lives beyond recognition. Or, as frontwoman Abigail Morris puts it, “the surreal, simultaneously euphoric and destructive feeling of being in this band and everything we experienced over the last 18 months”.
Morris and guitarist Emily Roberts are zooming in to chat with NME from a hotel in Liverpool, where they’re wrapping up a week of UK album launch shows. Since their appearance on NME’s The Cover just over two years ago, The Last Dinner Party have been through the gamut of highs and lows – from festival runs and sold-out tours to cancelled shows and being picked apart in the media. The rose garden of overnight fame has brought its fair share of thorns, from private school discourse to industry plant allegations.
“When it happens and you’re unprepared like we were, it can feel really disconcerting,” Morris reflects. “As a person, it’s really strange coming to terms with ‘having fans’. Constantly receiving not just criticism, but also really intense praise, from people who have never met you and know nothing about you can make you feel insane.”
That whiplash comes through in the album’s jaunty closer ‘Inferno’, whose sentiments on the very first verse veer abruptly from “I’m Jesus Christ” to the almost-immediate next line: “I’m the guillotine / I’m terrified”.
“You’ll read things where people are saying: ‘This is the best band in the world! I’ve never heard music like this!’” Morris elaborates, “whilst seeing people deeply criticise you musically and personally at the same time. Both things are unhealthy to put serious weight behind. You can lose any discerning filter and start believing everything. A learning curve for us has been figuring out whose opinions to really care about.”
It’s fitting, then, that an experience “so unimaginable and out of the ordinary”, as Morris describes, is portrayed as the stuff of myth and legend. The band stages this story on the album around the flames of a pyre – a fabled place of both destruction and creation.
Their debut album ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ set a high bar, but ‘From The Pyre’ lifts the band to even greater artistic heights. From its cover – a surreal composite image of the band in various miniature scenes, drawing from The Canterbury Tales and the religious triptychs of Hieronymus Bosch – to its soaring, triumphant sound and brazen lyrics, the album bursts with the “adventurous” spirit in which the band resolved to make it.
“It has a sense of togetherness,” Roberts describes, “but it’s also quite dark and a little bit scary.” Indeed, that duality shines through. ‘Woman Is A Tree’ opens with a haunting, Midsommar-like chorus of discordant female voices, whilst ‘Rifle’ rages against the war machine with the furious reprise: “Crush to dust / All you love / Does it feel good / Spilling blood?”
That latter song strikes a particular chord for the band. From displaying QR codes for Palestinian aid at their festival sets to naming the situation in Gaza a genocide, the band have been clear-eyed in their support for Palestine amidst an onslaught of Israeli state violence in the region. Their decision to withdraw from Portsmouth’s Victorious Festival in August – after organisers cut off Irish band The Mary Wallopers for waving a Palestinian flag and calling for a “free Palestine” on stage – was, according to Morris, a “no-brainer”.
“There’s no way we could support a festival that literally silences someone on stage for holding up a flag,” she says. “We feel very lucky to be in this generation of bands who are standing up for things. We find it really inspiring and bolstering seeing bands like Fontaines [D.C.] and Kneecap setting an example and using their voice for good. It feels really good to be part of that movement.”
She agrees with the observation that there’s been a shift in how artists speak out — one that would have felt taboo not long ago. “I think it has really changed in the last few years”, she considers. “As an artist today, even if your writing isn’t on the nose politically, you can’t help but be a part of the world. You’re still absorbing what’s going on and being a channel for it. With the world the way it is right now, it didn’t make sense for us not to say anything. We’re talking about this in our normal lives, with each other and our friends. Trying to figure out the best way to use our vote in elections, how to do things on the ground, where to donate our money… It makes sense, then, that we also talk about it publicly.”
“A learning curve for us has been figuring out whose opinions to really care about” – Abigail Morris
Alongside the new album, the band have announced headline tours across the UK, Europe and North America that will stretch into 2026. It’s a familiar path – one they followed with their debut album until touring reached a breaking point last year, forcing them to cancel a run of UK and European shows due to “emotional, mental and physical burnout”.
“It was such a hard decision to have to make as we didn’t want to let anyone down,” Roberts reflects now. “But we had to prioritise our health. It’s really hard as a new artist to know your limits until you reach them.”
“At the beginning, we felt like we had to say yes to literally everything that came our way,” she continues. “Obviously, it was good and got us to where we are, but there’s only so much you can do without harming yourself in some way – whether that’s getting overwhelmed, depressed or overworked. We know our limits better now, and because of that, hope we won’t have to cancel anything again. It’s been good seeing other artists like Chappell [Roan] do the same thing as well.”
They’re now building rest and recovery into tour planning, “sitting down with our managers and agents and figuring out a schedule that works for us”, Morris explains. “How many days in a row can we physically perform? How many days of travel can we do before needing time off to recover, and how much?”
The realities of touring life are woven into the album, too. Especially, as Morris notes, the “Venn diagram of ‘being a woman’ and ‘being an artist’ and within it, the specific fraught experience of being a ‘touring female musician’”.
On ‘Agnus Dei’, the band sing in chorus: “All I can give you is your name in lights forever / And ain’t that so much better than a ring on my finger?” It’s a striking image – the tradeoff between immortalising your lover in song but not being able to give them a stable home life with you. Themes of motherhood and femininity also echo through the record, especially on ‘Woman Is A Tree’ and ‘I Hold Your Anger’.
“We’re in our late twenties, a time when your friendship groups start talking about getting engaged and whether or not to start a family,” Morris shares. “It’s interesting to navigate that as a female artist. Like, what do you choose? The road, the album, the marriage, the baby? All of it? None of it? What sacrifices do you have to make? Can you take control of your artistry and your body?”
Speaking to other female artists about this complex subject is comforting, she adds. “Especially with people like Florence Welch, who I really trust. It’s so good to talk about it, even if no one really has ‘the answer’.”
The pyre, then, is a place of reckoning and rebirth. From its flames, The Last Dinner Party are burning down the old world: the innocence of anonymity, the chaos of sudden fame, the weight of expectation. And from the ashes, they’ve forged something enduring – a new mythology, “twisted and recontextualised” through their own lived experience.
The Last Dinner Party’s ‘From The Pyre’ is out now via Island Records. The band are on tour in the UK now, with international dates to follow in 2026.
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