34. Last Dinner Party - "Prelude to Ecstasy"

Even more non-metal and this is not even a band that I have loved forever who I am forlornly clinging to as I slip below the metallic waves. Last Dinner Party are brand-spanking new, even if their sound is really rather retro. This is the return of chamber pop but infused with Goth sensibilities. Imagine Siouxsie Sioux fronting Fleetwood Mac and you’re part of the way there.

This (together with another record even higher up the totem) have reaffirmed and reinvigorated my love of quaint, quirky “bedwetting” indie. This is an album that realises that idiosyncratic and eccentric doesn’t need to mean slight and underwhelming. Instead, it takes the high tempo and self-affirming nerd-power of Pulp and feeds it into a wonderfully reconstituted version of 70’s AOR.

For the first time in ages, I am not worried about where youth are taking music. This is a brilliant smash-and-grab across multiple genres. It plays completely into my theory that Spotify has completely altered the process of being influenced, as everything ever is available to everyone. “Prelude to Ecstasy” is the sound of five incredibly talented, and creatively literate, young people playing pick and mix with the entire history of pop. What they have created is astonishing. Indie pop lives to fight another day.