The Last Dinner Party have already made themselves known as a very hyped act within the UK music scene after seemingly appearing out of nowhere. Prior to listening to this, their debut album I hadn't really looked into them, I was already getting my Glam Rock fix at the time and didn't feel the need to check these out, but since the album is here I thought I'd give them a chance.
So this album is a lot of things but key among them is a bit shallow compositionally. That isn't saying there isn't any good here, "The Feminine Urge" is one of the best tracks on the album, it has a really solid rhythm and every build feels rewarding and "Sinner" is another success, some great group vocals and some great melodic touches.
Nothing else here is especially bad but it all feels a bit, lacking. The band wears their influences pretty firmly on their sleeves, "Burn Alive" is a very Kate Bush sounding slower cut (down to directly using a pretty identifiable drum pattern), it is pleasant and has an interesting driving groove but I feel it builds to a pretty unsatisfying conclusion. Showing off your influences is by no means a bad thing but I feel like most of what this band has taken is surface level.
The other songs don't fare too much better. "On Your Side" feels a bit directionless but is nice sounding enough. Most disappointing to me personally, "Nothing Matters" the album's most successful song is one where I felt that despite a solid rhythm it was missing some more impassioned delivery. The band have a pretty solid grip on how to make a song sound great on the surface but I consistently felt that the melodies were lacking in a way that led to it feeling consistently unmemorable.
On the whole here we are left with an album that I understand the appeal of completely but one I still found myself pretty disappointed in. The band clearly have the chops to pull off music that sounds huge and potent but behind this, I often found the songs at their core to be pretty weak. I still feel like I could eventually love this band and it is just their debut but I wasn't sold here.
