the last dinner party
From The Pyre via Island Records
Reviewed by Anya Weston-Shaw
Album released 17th Oct 25
The Last Dinner Party return with From The Pyre, a record that burns brighter and darker than their debut. From the storming opener Agnus Dei, the band immediately reclaim their flair for the theatrical, lush, urgent, and steeped in myth.
There’s a strong thread of wicca and pagan imagery woven throughout, with an earthy and rather raw emotional landscape being carved, giving the album a sense of ritual and mysticism. It’s a natural progression from the baroque opulence of Prelude to Ecstasy, but here the drama feels more grounded, more earth and fire, than velvet and lace which feels like a progression from their debut.
The band’s charismatic vocals shine across the record, carrying an almost choral resonance at times. Tracks like Second Best show off intricate song structures and layered harmonies that nod to both classical influences and modern pop ambition.
Elsewhere, The Last Dinner Party lean into their glam rock instincts, particularly on This Is The Killer Speaking. With its dramatic piano intro and incredibly catchy hook, it feels both cinematic and slyly tongue-in-cheek, a nod to their flair for storytelling and self-aware performance.
From The Pyre captures a band unafraid to evolve. It’s confident, charismatic, and occasionally chaotic a record that proves their fire wasn’t a spark of debut hype, but something much more enduring.
electric litany
Desires via Flying Hearts
Reviewed by Levi Tubman
Album released 17th Oct 25
Electric Litany are a London based alternative synth pop group who describe their latest album as Emerging at a time when the line between truth and illusion is increasingly blurred and “if reality is a construct, does it even matter what’s real?” that’s putting a lot of weight and expectation on an album, let’s see if it holds up.
Opening up the album, Falcon’s intro brings a Japanese feel to it, with what sounds like, an unfortunately short lived, synth bass Koto. When the drums and vocals come in, they’re slow and distant, opting for a clean sounding process and less recording a drum kit down the other end of the hall, giving it such an ethereal sound you feel you might float away just from listening to it.
In case you needed bringing back down to earth, this is followed up with Opia, which might have been better titled dystopia. From the start its angular and angrier, with synths sounding more like alarms and thumping kick drums, with a darker bleak vocal tone. It’s a post-apocalyptic soundscape punctuated with bright piano chords that feel like bursts of hope.
After the juxtaposition of the opening tracks the album settles down to what might be called more traditional songs, or traditional for Electric Litany anyway. Reciprocate and Diamonds are pulled straight from 1980, perfectly capturing the energy and sound of new wave. They really help move the album along and help give it direction.
The themes of ethereal dream pop and Dark Wave are wound all throughout the album, with parts sounding like they’re played down a well with sparse and light vocals backed against angry synths where saw tooth is king. Luckily, it’s held together and doesn’t lose its identity by having sounds so at odds with each other.
The latter half of the record unfortunately seems have sections that drift a little and lack focus, where you don’t quite get the ending, you're expecting remaining a little flat, although this is a band that doesn’t conform to the standard pop rock norms and could quite easily be put down to personal taste.
This is brought back in touch though with the last track Bless, its sporadic cymbals build to bring in the rest of the drum kit, with building synths, they gradual layering of sounds it reads like a story, with the anticipation building to the culmination of delayed strings just slightly echoing off into nothingness.
This album is definitely a slow burn, you can see the time and creativity that’s gone into it, but you need the right setting and time to listen to it, if you're someone who listens to the first 10 seconds of a track and if it doesn’t grab you, skips to the next, you're going to miss a lot.
It’s interesting and creative, I just wish, for my personal taste, there was more structure in some of the songs.
Track Listing:
1. Falcon
2. Opia
3. Reciprocate
4. Diamonds
5. Prism
6. Itor
7. For Another
8. Crumpets
9. Junkie
10. Bless
