The Last Dinner Party has returned with its third single, “My Lady Of Mercy,” in which the band takes its sound and imagery darker than ever.
“Oh rest your feet on me/My lady of mercy,” they sing on the stormy chorus. “Strike me, pierce me straight through the heart.” The video was directed by the band alongside Harv Frost and Dora Paphides and finds the band performing dramatically in monochrome tones.
“‘My Lady of Mercy’ is about being a girl,” the band explained. “A girl looking up at a painting of Joan of Arc for the first time and thinking that she looks so brave and so beautiful that she wants to kiss her. And maybe she also wants to kiss the girl who stands next to her in the school choir.
“We are expanding the world of The Last Dinner Party to encompass a darker, heavier atmosphere. The lyrics explore the anguish of a teenage crush that can only be described through the bloody, carnal language of religious experience, as the soundworld takes cues from Nine Inch Nails, PJ Harvey and Roxy Music.”
“My Lady Of Mercy” follows the band’s previous two singles, “Sinner” and “Nothing Matters.” The former told “a story of self-acceptance and the longing for the past and present self to become one.”
Meanwhile, The Last Dinner Party is currently on tour in the UK, after which it will head to the US for its first headlining tour there. It will then wrap up 2023 with a support slot on Hozier’s UK and European arena tour.
Next year promises to be even bigger for the hotly-tipped band, kicking off with a special “intimate variety show” at London’s Roundhouse in February. “No particular reason for this event….none at all…but we recommend very very strongly that you attend, could be historical,” the band teased when announcing the date earlier this month.
Buy or stream “My Lady Of Mercy.”
