Conceptual band La Dispute has released three new songs as Act 4 of their forthcoming album No One Was Driving the Car—their first full-length since 2019’s Panorama. The album is heavily influenced by the 2017 psychological thriller First Reformed, and the first track of Act 4, Top-Sellers Banquet, imitates the film’s iconic levitation scene as Dreyer narrates a ballet performance at a marketing company’s banquet, where the dancers become suspended in the air. Jordan Dreyer, the band’s lyricist and vocalist, explains:
“the next act was heavily inspired by a particular scene in First Reformed, where the film’s two primary characters connect through a ritual of remembrance and comfort, traveling beyond their plane of reality into some otherworldly beyond. the record’s spiritual/metaphysical event happens here, in the middle of a banquet held by the multi-level marketing company mentioned in the fourth song from the prior act in celebration of their fiscal year’s highest performers. after a welcome speech, and while the provided entertainment (ballet dancers accompanied by a small orchestra) begins between tables on the floor, a sudden flash of light occurs, an indescribable sound accompanying it, and light begins to fall through the hall’s high ceilings down, focused only on the non-employees in attendance (the dancers, the servers, the players, valets), at which point they begin to rise impossibly skyward, leaving the others invited attendees and higher ups behind.
