Music
UPDATE: [Album Review] Longreef ‘Dirty Motel EP’
Update: You can download a free track “Want Me Back” by clicking here.
Review by Chris Lockett: In this day and age, it is very difficult for a Rock band to be successful. The great Australian band AC/DC once said, “It’s a long way to the top if you wanna Rock n’ Roll”. And now, a new Aussie band is looking for success here in the U.S. Their name is Longreef, and they plan to release their second EP, entitled “Dirty Motel” on June 12th. They certainly have the drive to be a success, but do they have the talent? Hit the jump to find out!
If you’ve heard the band’s first EP, simply titled Longreef, then you will recall that the band has a surf-rock sound going on. Well, throw your expectations out the window because Dirty Motel is a VERY different animal, drawing a strong influence from 90s post-grunge, as well as being lyrically reminiscent of other modern hard rock bands such as Buckcherry and Papa Roach. To be honest, I could see fans of the band’s first EP not really liking Dirty Motel because of its drastic change in sound. However, what people need to understand is that Longreef is a band that wears its influences on its sleeve, and is interested, for the time being, in experimenting with different genres. There is nothing wrong with this, and it should be looked at as a positive thing, rather than a negative. This way, when the band decides to put out their debut album, they will already have a legion of fans who will be curious as to how much of the sound from their favorite of the band’s EPs made it on to the album. Some may be disappointed, but hey, at least they’ll still have the original EP that piqued their interests in the band in the first place.
So the EP starts off with two dirty rockers, the first of which is “She Likes The Ladies”, which consists of singer Josh Barker singing about a lady that he likes who, well, likes ladies too. The second track, (and my favorite of the EP), is “Dirty Motel”, which is about a woman who moves to Hollywood, and all of the…favors that she has to provide in order to become famous. So what makes the two tracks any different than something that Nickelback would write? Well, for one the lyrics are written much more creatively, containing a lot of innuendo as opposed to in your face horndoggery (yes, I just created a word). For instance, a verse from “Dirty Motel”: Ropin’ in the trust fund babies/Daddy’s little girl wants to be a star/She learns fast, how to get what she wants/with her head down, in the fancy cars. So, as you can see, it’s not The Wall, but it’s not trying to be either.
The third track of the EP, entitled “How Long”, is a boring and forgettable soft rocker thats only purpose is to lull listeners in to the final two tracks of the EP, both of which are ballads. For future releases, I feel that it would prove beneficial to mix the rockers and the ballads together, as opposed to keeping them separated, so as to shake things up and not rely on a combo song to tie the two types of songs together.
The two ballads at the end of the EP are very solid, and are able to balance emotion with the dirty post-grunge sound that graces the rest of the EP. The first ballad, “Want Me Back”, is your stereotypical broken heart ballad, that somehow manages to work in spite of itself. It’s a bit mushy, so to speak, and is definitely one for the ladies. The second ballad, “Sweet Emotion”, (no, it’s not an Aerosmith cover), is a relaxing acoustic ditty that does its job, and does it well.
The Bottom Line: Dirty Motel is an interesting departure from Longreef’s first EP. It has become clear that this is a band that is not interested in sticking to just one sound, and would rather experiment and see what sticks. Some may look at this as a bad thing, but those with an appetite for versatility will undoubtedly find much to love about this band.
Multi-award-winning and unapologetically cinematic UK band The Last Dinner Party have always seemed drawn to the places where opposites collide. Beauty and violence. Grief and ecstasy. The sacred and the grotesque. It’s there in their music, performances, and in the worlds they’ve built around themselves since the band’s earliest days.
Their songs often feel less like traditional rock music and more like myths in motion, unfolding somewhere between a dream, a film, and a fevered memory. Perhaps that’s why horror feels so naturally at home within their creative universe.
For Abigail Morris, the group’s charismatic ringleader, some of horror’s most enduring filmmakers understand that terror becomes more powerful when it exists alongside beauty.
Discussing the work of Dario Argento, she points to films like Suspiria and Phenomena as perfect examples of that tension.
“I think it’s actually the proximity of those things rather than the distance,” Morris explains. “The things that are really beautiful and the things that are really terrifying. It’s like the idea of the sublime. The closer that beauty is to terror, the more beautiful it is and the more terrifying it is rather than the juxtaposition. I think that that’s where the sweet spot of fear and tension and intrigue and pure and real beauty is, where it’s almost the other. And I think that’s what Argento does really well with the sort of the beautiful casting and the sets and the lighting and then the buckets of red blood.”
She cites Argento’s ability to place stunning imagery directly beside the grotesque or unsettling. The vivid colors, dreamlike sets, and beautiful performers suddenly interrupted by buckets of blood, swarms of insects, or moments of genuine nightmare.
“I love how he plays with that,” she says.
That fascination with contradiction extends far beyond horror films. The Last Dinner Party’s work frequently occupies a similar emotional space, where longing can feel catastrophic, and heartbreak transforms into mythology. Morris brings up one of her favorites, Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (1981), as another example of horror expressing emotional truths more accurately than realism ever could.
“A divorce is a very human thing that happens,” she says. “And then to turn that into this psychological body, spiritual, eldritch horror is how it must feel to go through a divorce. And it’s more accurate.”
Not surprisingly, news of the upcoming Possession remake sparked a passionate response. “I’m fucking furious,” Morris laughs. While generally skeptical of remakes, she makes an exception for Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria, praising the filmmaker for creating something entirely his own rather than attempting to recreate Argento’s original.
“He wasn’t trying to capture the energy of Argento’s film. It felt like a story in its own right.” She goes on to explain, “…if they do that with Possession, then I’m interested.”
The conversation also reveals just how deeply cinema has been embedded into The Last Dinner Party from the very beginning. Long before sold-out shows and award nominations, the band envisioned themselves not simply as musicians but as architects of an entire world.
“When we started the band, the visuals were of equal importance to the music,” Morris says. “Before we played a show, before we shot a music video, we decided that what we wanted this band to be was something that was a complete world.”
That commitment led to elaborate mood boards, film references, styling concepts, and even a 72-page presentation that helped define the band’s visual identity before many people had ever heard a note of their music.
For composer, songwriter, and keyboardist Aurora Nishevci, many of those same cinematic instincts have begun finding new outlets. She speaks passionately about the horror scores that continue to inspire her, including the work of Mica Levi and Hildur Guðnadóttir. Rather than relying solely on traditional horror techniques, she is fascinated by artists willing to challenge expectations.
“You can decide to go the traditional route,” Nishevci says. “Or you can completely go another way and still be terrifying.”
That fascination has now become something more personal. Nishevci reveals that she is currently working on her first horror feature as a composer, bringing her own musical language into the genre that has influenced her for years.
The band’s connection to horror has also found an unexpected audience among fans of Yellowjackets. Online, edits pairing The Last Dinner Party’s music with scenes from the series have become increasingly common. At concerts, fans have even begun holding up photos of Jackie during performances of “Woman Is a Tree.”
At first, Morris couldn’t understand what she was seeing.
“I thought it was someone’s grandma,” she says. Only later did she realize the mysterious photographs were actually tributes to one of the show’s most beloved characters. “It’s fucking Jackie from Yellowjackets!”
The band enthusiastically express interest in seeing those worlds collide one day.
While The Last Dinner Party’s future remains unwritten, horror seems destined to remain part of it. Asked what creative paths still excite them, Morris immediately begins dreaming beyond albums and tours.
“We’ll do a horror movie as well.”
Nishevci quickly adds another possibility that has apparently been living on the band’s mood board for some time. “We keep talking about doing a folk horror EP.” “That’s been on the mood board,” Morris confirms.
For a band already obsessed with mythology, ritual, transformation, storytelling, beauty, and terror, both ideas feel less like surprises and more like inevitable next chapters. For much more with Abigail Morris and Aurora Nishevci, including further musings on Argento, Possession, Salò, Hausu, and the future of The Last Dinner Party, check out The Boo Crew Podcast Episode 473 available now on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
The band joins Olivia Rodrigo on the road next year for multiple sold-out residencies in New York and LA. Follow the Last Dinner Party on Instagram.