The Last Dinner Party’s next era is underway. On Thursday (July 17), the five-piece announced its second studio album, From the Pyre, and shared its jaunty, country-tinged lead single, “This Is the Killer Speaking.” The new LP will arrive on Oct. 17 via Island Records.

The band debuted “This Is the Killer Speaking” in June 2024 at Prague’s Metronome Festival, before playing it at Glastonbury later that month. The song has since appeared sporadically in The Last Dinner Party’s setlists over the past 12 months, before the group confirmed its title during a performance at Pinkpop Festival, Netherlands, on June 21. 

Per a press release, the baroque-pop band headed into the studio at the start of the year with producer Markus Dravs (Wolf Alice, Florence & The Machine) to start work on From the Pyre. The record will follow 2024’s Prelude to Ecstasy, which topped the Official U.K. Albums Chart upon release and gained the biggest opening week for a debut album by a British band since 2015, according to data from Official Charts Company.

“This record is a collection of stories, and the concept of album-as-mythos binds them. ‘The Pyre’ itself is an allegorical place in which these tales originate, a place of violence and destruction but also regeneration, passion and light,” the band said in a statement.

“The songs are character driven but still deeply personal, a commonplace life event pushed to pathological extreme. Being ghosted becomes a Western dance with a killer, and heartbreak laughs into the face of the apocalypse. Lyrics invoke rifles, scythes, sailors, saints, cowboys, floods, Mother Earth, Joan of Arc and blazing infernos. We found this kind of evocative imagery to be the most honest and truthful way to discuss the way our experiences felt, giving each the emotional weight it deserves.”

They added: “This record feels a little darker, more raw and more earthy; it takes place looking out at a sublime landscape rather than seated at an opulent table. It also feels meta-textual and cheeky in places, like a knowing look reflected back at ourselves.”

In March, the band scooped the best new artist accolade at the BRIT Awards. In September, they are set to appear at All Things Go festival in New York City alongside the likes of Doechii, Lola Young and Noah Kahan.

Check out the tracklist to The Last Dinner Party’s’ upcoming album From the Pyre and stream the first single below: