By: Sophie Talcove-Berko | 01 April, 2024
Entering the sonic world of The Last Dinner Party feels like tumbling into a Victorian-era nihilistic rager.
Credit: @thelastdinnerparty and @calmcintyrestudio on Instagram
Prelude to Ecstasy, the British indie rock band’s debut album, is very of the moment. Like, let’s dance in the ruins of the impending apocalypse current. The wide range of inspirations—channeling David Bowie, Florence and the Machine, Glam Rock, and Tumblr—reflects the influence of the internet on their music. The band has said that having “access to the entire universe on a f***ing laptop” has informed their aesthetic choices and the desire to blend different worlds.
Covering a wide range of topics from indulgence and sin, to sexual power and misogyny, to trauma and tragedy, The Last Dinner Party invites listeners to join their feast for the eyes and ears.
"NOTHING MATTERS"
TLDP’s first single, "Nothing Matters," captures the mood among the current zeitgeist that the world is burning (literally and figuratively…) and nothing really matters. Ultimately, this is a love song, juxtaposing an unrepentant and unreturned passion for one’s partner with feminine sexual power.
The music video opens with all five band members, dressed in black, burying an unidentified body, appearing mournful while standing over the grave. Lead singer Abigail Morris is styled with a white veil that invokes a bride, a symbol of a woman’s devotion to a typically male partner.
Credit: "Nothing Matters" music video, The Last Dinner Party, youtube (official video)
The video cuts between contrasting scenes of the band partying at an elaborate banquet and the five members clad in white in various claustrophobic environments. A scene of them sitting in a bedroom braiding eachother’s hair and kneeling on the floor pays tribute to The Virgin Suicides, the 1999 film about five sisters who commit suicide, narrated from the perspective of their male classmates.
Credit: "Nothing Matters" music video, The Last Dinner Party, youtube (official video)
The bandmates, dutifully brushing one another’s hair as if they are dolls and sitting compliantly with a bland backdrop, depict innocence as they perform for the male gaze. Even their eyesight is policed, with their mute glances indicating subservience.
Credit: "Nothing Matters" music video, The Last Dinner Party, youtube (official video)
One segment repeats itself throughout, of them stuck in a stairwell in a glass building, being admired from the outside. They creepily walk in a line, emphasizing the unrelenting power of the male gaze.
Credit: "Nothing Matters" music video, The Last Dinner Party, youtube (official video)
This is juxtaposed with the musicians feasting at a banquet: licking their fingers, dancing on tables, and crushing a pomegranate, subverting the proper dinner etiquette expected of female-identifying individuals. The strategic use of color is evident, as the bedroom and stairwell settings are depicted in stark all-white, while the festivities showcase flamboyant and bright props and dresses. These scenes appear to contrast what the male gaze would put forth as the ideal traits of a woman – innocence, naiveté, obedience, and chastity – with a powerful, celebratory, unapologetic femininity.
Credit: "Nothing Matters" music video, The Last Dinner Party, youtube (official video)
Towards the end, with a worm’s-eye-view camera shot, all five bandmates happily sing into the grave the song’s defining lyric, “I will f*ck you like nothing matters,” indicating that despite the initial sorrowful expressions, they have perhaps reclaimed their power.
Donning white dresses, the band members joyfully run in a field. They glance back. Despite the lyrics conveying that they will not be loved or seen by their partner as they desire, they are free.
Credit: "Nothing Matters" music video, The Last Dinner Party, youtube (official video)
"SINNER"
"Sinner" is an electric queer anthem about self acceptance. It wrestles with the desire to embrace one’s sexuality while reckoning with the conflicting ideas instilled by a religious upbringing. Through the notion of sin, TLDP explores the challenge of reconciling your past self with your present identity.
The opening verse expresses a yearning for something unrealizable, to have fallen in love before certain emotions were colored by religious prejudice. “I wish I knew you/Back when we were both small ... .I wish I knew you/Before it felt like a sin.”
Appropriating the idea of sin to articulate desire, Morris sings, “Turn to the altar of lust.” The lyrics explore the irony in depicting sin as the foil of sexual passion, satirically chanting “Pray for me on your knees.” Is devotion not another form of love?
The exhilarating pre-chorus contrasts sex with purity:
“Pray for me, kneel with me
Soak in the crystal stream
Wash the sin from your back
Cleanse my soul, make me whole
Dance in the morning glow
Hold me, we can't go back
Before it felt like a sin”
*Cue epic guitar solo worthy of cries of delight, thank you Emily Roberts. She. Is. Shredding.*
By referencing the cleansing ritual of baptism while incorporating sexual innuendos (“Kneel with me/Soak in the crystal stream”), the lyrics play with the idea of purity and desire being opposing structures. The author longs for the feeling of innocence evoked by the washing away of original sin.
The lines “Hold me, we can't go back” and “There’s nothing for me/Here, where the world is small” imply an inability to feel fully whole in a new place that accepts your sexuality, but cannot understand your upbringing. Guitarist and vocalist Lizzie Mayland expounds on this, saying, “The contrast between life in a small-minded small town vs the more accepting (but often lonely) cityscape plays into the tension between queerness, innocence and adulthood – finding yourself in a place where you can be your true self, but losing touch with the formative place and people of your childhood creates longing for an impossible place which marries the two (the freedom of adulthood and the homeliness of childhood).”
This song is about finding acceptance in the ever-evolving versions of yourself.
"MIRROR"
The concluding track "Mirror" is orchestral, haunting, and lush.
This song was originally written about losing yourself in a codependent relationship, but the meaning of the track has frequently evolved for lead singer Abigail Morris. Now, she views it as a reflection on the feeling that she is always performing.
An artist’s struggle between wanting to be known and giving too much of themselves is alluded to in the following lyric, “I’m on the hunt for something, want my pound of flesh?” The line between a musician’s public persona and genuine self can easily become blurred, raising the question: How do you remain authentic while embodying a character created from the pieces of your very real identity? Will you ultimately lose yourself to the performance?
The exploration of the commodification of the self and art nods to the earlier track "Burn Alive", where Morris explicitly states, “Let me make my grief a commodity.” To emphasize the ways in which female artists are turned into products, at the 2024 Brit Awards, Morris donned a bridal-inspired gown with the phrase “I’m only here for your entertainment” printed across the top.
"Mirror" asks who ultimately pays the cost for the cross we force female artists to bear, whether it’s the expectation to perform suffering or to monetize one’s pain. There is a religious undertone to it all, the thirst for the artist to confess their sins followed by punishment for revealing their pain.
Highlighting the anxiety of being thrown away when you no longer fit the cultural narrative, and society’s perverse delight in seeing a celebrity’s downfall, Morris sings “What if I keep sinking?/If I drown will they make me a star?” The mirror is turned onto the audience, asking us to consider our own role in perpetuating the media cycle of adoration to hatred, of building women up just to tear them down: “I'm just a mirror/I don't exist without your gaze/I fade away.”
The final nail on the cross: “When you drown/They'll forget who you are.” Was it all for nothing?
Honorable mention for lyrics to be savored:
“I wish you had given me/The courtesy of ripping out my throat/I wish that I’d let you have the dignity of letting me go.” - "Portrait of a Dead Girl"
“He has the Earth, makes love to her to spite me” - "Beautiful Boy"
“Picture me in bed/Under your crucifix” - "My Lady of Mercy"
“And it's raining like it did in Leningrad/My lover would like to buy a flat in Leningrad” - "Caesar on a TV Screen"
“When I was a child, I never felt like a child/I felt like an emperor with a city to burn” - "Caesar on a TV Screen"
This decadent, gender-bending, theatrical debut is worthy of a full listen from beginning to end. I can’t wait to witness the party live.
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