OMD - Bauhaus Staircase
Synthpop (2023)



I heard they had reformed a few years back so thought I’d check in with them. I’m pleased to say they’ve retained their punch (in the main) without masking obvious tip of the hat to Kraftwerk. Political lyrics set alongside some catchy hooks. Of course they’ll never top ‘Architecture & Morality’ but besting one of the all-time classic synthpop LP’s is nigh on unreachable.

Must Listen: Slow Train

Moot_Geeza wrote:

This is mostly rapid, slightly vapid garage rock with a puddledeep wordsoup skillfully vomited over the top

Well that sounds quite perfectly up my alley. Will check it out (after the Last Dinner Party album, which is out today and takes priority.)

Moot_Geeza wrote:

29. Sprints - Letter to Self Forgot to review this last time so just listened again.  STRAIGHT FIRE when it all goes off - no wonder the band were so keen to copyright it.  Vocals are a perfect fit for the band, whatshername has a great big noise/small band voice.   Good as it is I doubt I'll play it loads as I've got a suspicion it might yield diminishing returns on repeat listens (it's an agreeably straightforward album), but it's immediately legit and I bet they're amazing live.  Must listen: Literary Mind (which I already knew from somewhere.  On here maybe, or perhaps Tidal played me an EP a while ago....unless it's a cover?)

Perfect review - exactly right.  I heard one song, and got very very excited.  I bought the album TWICE and listened to it non-stop for 3 days, and then lost interest and decided I liked Swim School more.  The constant repetition of lyrics begins to grind if you overdo the listens.

Must listen - Cathedral

The Last Dinner Party are this year’s music industry darlings. The hype band. And it’s easy to see why. A young girl group with vintage style, dramatic music tastes, genuine charisma and fucking HUGE choruses. The influences aren’t subtle - Florence Welch, Kate Bush, Siouxie Sioux, Tori Amos, Amanda Palmer. But there’s more in the mix too. Roxy Music, for sure. Led Zeppelin, in places. Don’t be fooled by their appearance, these girls can let rip too. Overall the vibe is decadence and doomed romance. Feasting on music and youth and love and lust.

Prelude to Ecstasy - The Last Dinner Party



I’ve been waiting for this album. Let’s see how it pans out.

We’re kicking off with an orchestral intro. Quite baroque, actually. Building like a Disney theme, if your Disney princess wore a gothic dress and ripped tights. Nice, sets the scene, but it’s going to fuck with some shuffle playlists, that’s for sure.

Into the first actual song, Burn Alive, which was supposed to be their first single, until they wrote the now-legendary Nothing Matters. Opening songs, especially on debut albums, need to introduce a band. Nail their aesthetic in one go. Announce them, if you like. Burn Alive does that. You immediately get Abigail’s cut-glass vocals, the Roxy Music meets Florence & the Machine musical direction, and the Amanda Palmer-style emotional rawness with a hint of sexual menace. It’s catchy too, and ends with an almost-snarled refrain of the chorus. It basically says ‘fancy us but don’t fuck with us’.

Ceasar on a TV Screen is up next. The most recent single. It’s a classic album track really, shouldn’t have been a single in my opinion. Nice idea - this super-feminine girl band singing about how empowering it is to dress as a man and immediately get treated differently - but it lacks the pop hooks of Burn Alive. Probably destined to be a fan favourite, not a festival anthem.

And next the girls turn things down a notch. The Feminine Urge is a softer, more reflective song. Nice indie guitars jangling along behind their usual wall of pretty noise, and a slower shuffle instead of dramatic strut of the bigger hitters. Abigail gets into her stride by the third or fourth chorus though, and those trademark histrionics are kicking in again. This is possibly the most Roxy Music vibe they hit on the whole record, but by the end of the song they’ve still ended up building it up to a crescendo that fits their usual style.

On Your Side slinks in after that. It’s the sound of them trying to seduce you. And it fucking works. On Your Side is sexy as hell. Sparse instrumentation, slower drums, with Abigail throwing you half-sung, half-pleaded compliments while she twists the words around to reveal that it’s her who caused the heartbreak she’s been singing about understanding. “If you stay all night, I’ll be on your side” strongly implies that if you don’t, you’re in trouble. She’s smiling just to show you her teeth.

There’s been a lot of hype about the next track. Beautiful Boy has been a live highlight, apparently. It’s a slow song. And again, it’s channelling the ghosts of Amanda Palmer and Kate Bush. It’s a heartbreaker, for sure, tentative piano backing that posh-but-filthy-sounding voice, while she sings about the way physical beauty can be simultaneously powerful and fragile. It’s think it’s a shame the band don’t yet have the confidence to let this song just be what it is though - again, they build and layer instruments and intensity on top over and over until it crashes through the final chorus with no subtlety left. I reckon it would have hit harder if they’d kept this one low.

Bit of a curveball after that. Gjuha is a fragile, beautiful interlude sung in Albanian … about the shame of growing up without learning your own family’s mother tongue. Mercifully brief though, not sure it’d sustain interest over five minutes.

Then BANG. Sinner is their finest moment so far, for me. This is one hell of a song. Stompy, gorgeous, and full of hooks. The guitar solos are assured and smooth, the drums crash in and fall away at just the right moments, and Abigail sings about the stresses of growing up queer in a way that anyone, straight, gay, bi, young or old, can identify with - turning it into a celebratory, cathartic, outpouring. I bloody love this one. Right down to the comedy ‘nerr-nerr’ guitar riff at the end.

My Lady of Mercy is a real statement piece. An ’80s-inspired pop blast, handclaps and all, with overtly religious dramaqueening splurged all over it, that explodes into a Led Zeppelin chorus for no apparent reason. The hard/soft contrast as interpreted by a Catholic girl gang instead of by a grunge band. One of those songs that sounds all wrong on first listen but then worms its way into your head and never leaves. Someone’s going to buy this to soundtrack horror movie trailers and it’s going to be glorious.

You couldn’t get a more ‘Last Dinner Party’ title than Portrait of a Dead Girl. We’re back downtempo here. Vocals first, a quiet piano motif, and subtle drums. Again though, they can’t resist building up on top of that, and we get a lushly orchestrated chorus that ups the volume … even a string section coming in on the downside of each chorus. By halfway through, it’s hitting all the same stylistic beats as the other tracks.

You’ve all heard Nothing Matters by now, surely. It’s The Big One. It’s everything The Last Dinner Party are, thrown in your face at once, with a huge confident grin and a big ‘FUCK’ in the chorus. It’s one of the best pop songs in years. Maybe in decades. And it encapsulates everything this band is. It’s grand gestures, romance, confidence, and being in a gang that’s cooler than you. It’s beautiful.

There’s no way to top that, so the next track has to be a comedown. Mirror does that. Mirror is the reality check the morning after the decadence. It’s a meditation on stardom and performance, but also on relationships. And, for once, the band show restraint. It’s low and it stays low. There’s sorrow here, and a hint of menace. “I’ll leave you flowers … but not my name.” That iron-clad self-confidence is still present, even in a song that’s trying to show vulnerability. 

There’s a brief instrumental interlude tacked on the end of Mirror - another film soundtrack in the making. And suddenly the album’s over, on a discordant final note that sounds like broken glass. Nicely done.

So … do I like it? Yeah. Prelude to Ecstasy is one hell of a debut album. It feels complete. Like this band arrived fully-formed. Will I listen to it often? No, I don’t think so. Despite the breadth of their songwriting, most of the tracks sound the same. Instead of having a varied bunch of songs, The Last Dinner Party throw all their ideas into every one of them. I’ll do what I’ve already done with the singles - throw my favourite tracks onto my everyday playlist. I love this band. I love a few of the songs. But the album is probably just going to sit on my virtual shelf now.

Must listen? Sinner. Everybody’s already heard (and decided whether they love) Nothing Matters. But I think Sinner is the better song. It’s got more legs.

7. The Last Dinner Party - Prelude To Ecstacy 2/2/24



This isn't going to go as in depth as Poppo so no track by track, but I've been really looking forward to this as well.
Hyperu off the chain for this one, and pretty much it's met my expectations. Do you like Kate Bush outside of Stranger Things, Florence And The Machine outside of Final Fantasy? I sure as shit do, and I like that big orchestral pop up and down voice sound.

Caesar On A TV Screen and Beautiful Boy are two highlights on the album in different ways, but I'm a basic bitch for Nothing Matters that just stomps its way into your head. It's a tight 41 minutes, 12 tracks, and even after one listen I can remember something about every track, which is a good sign. Quite what the follow up will be is a question, but in the meantime this is a pretty storming debut.

[8]

Here it comes -

Burn Alive rules too.

Thing is you have been a bit selective because from your write up you clearly thing Nothing Matters slaps too. It's ok to like the same thing!

regmcfly wrote:

Thing is you have been a bit selective because from your write up you clearly thing Nothing Matters slaps too. It's ok to like the same thing!

I don’t think anyone can argue with Nothing Matters. It’s a hell of an achievement for such a young/new band.

I think this is the definitive version of it so far - a live performance is way better than the music video.

If you don’t like that song, you’re not likely to be into the rest. It’s pretty much their calling card.

Looks like it's me and poppo

All the best bands polarise opinions. I like this chat and I stand by thinking this lot are A Good Band.

Basilisk - J. Robbins



J. Robbins is a legend in the post-hardcore scene. He’s been making angular, off-kilter indie rock with crunchy guitars and syncopated rhythms for 40 years or so, across bands like Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Channels, and more. And he’s just as well-kent for producing, including albums for some of my favourite bands - The Dismemberment Plan, Jets to Brazil, The Promise Ring, Pilot to Gunner, Jawbreaker, etc. So he’s done a lot, but in a very narrow stylistic groove.

This is his third solo album. And it does exactly the same thing. It’s like a comfortable pair of slippers for the post-hardcore dads. If you enjoy short songs with interplay between guitars that swirl like Porno for Pyros one minute and crunch like At the Drive-in the next, you’ll like this. If you like masculine indie-rock from the Pacific NW with lyrics that feel politicised but are actually abstract, you’ll like this. If you like picked-out melodies over rumbling punky baselines, you’ll like this. If you like your drumming pared-back and accurate, like gunshots on the beat, you’ll like this. Basically, if you like J. Robbins and his work, you’ll like this. No surprises here, just high quality.

Must listen? I wouldn’t, if I were you. If you don’t already know J. Robbins’ stuff, go listen to the two Burning Airlines albums over this. And if you want just one track from that band as an introduction, start with All Sincerity.

8. KMFDM - Let Go 2/2/24




It's quite funny that a band centered around the end of Depeche Mode have now become more cartoonist and ridiculous than Dave Gahan and his heroin.

Anyway, I've seen KMFDM a bunch of times and put them in the same camp as Skinny Puppy (one of the most... Interesting live gigs of my life) but I always like some electronic music.

It's fun that this is camper and more outrospective than where Depeche Mode are in their careers. This is as if Nine Inch Nails never got past Pretty Hate Machine and it's 2024 now.

I've had fun but it ain't great.

[5]

That's pretty much it. I've seen KMFDM in the 90s noughties and next year.

There's been a lot of Amanda Palmer refs. I don't see It myself but