Yard Act are asking a question: what happens after your dreams have come true?
Remember post-punk?
It was the sound of the second half of the last decade, and during the pandemic you couldn’t move for heavy guitars and shouted lyrics.
Yet, as is proper, its main proponents have moved on: Fontaines D.C. (whom the title never sat comfortably with) accepted being defined by post-punk until it stopped being useful (namely album two), while recent collaborators LCD Soundsystem and Nigel Godrich influenced IDLES’ current output, both of who operate in different stratospheres to metallic riffage.
Yard Act were latecomers to the game but were savvy enough to realise the genre’s uses (cheaper, easy to understand) while simultaneously cocking a snook at it.
Like the scene’s other key players, the Leeds band have moved on and broadened their sound and influences, with second album Where’s My Utopia? throwing numerous other influences into the mix while still sounding inimitably like themselves.
As the title suggests, where on debut The Overload frontman James Smith was observing the world around him, here he is looking within and asking a question: what happens after your dreams have come true?
We get the answer eventually but, as with most things, the fun lies in finding out, in this case across a body of work that is more mixtape than album, many tracks interspersed with samples of either Yard Act’s own or sourced externally.
And for those who may be worried that Smith may getting a little too introspective, fear not: his tongue remains firmly in cheek.
The singles thus far released have all served a purpose but work much better in the context of the album: the strutting boogie of We Make Hits sits well as the second track, a story of pre-fame Yard Act’s outlook.
‘Two broke millennial men’, having signed to ‘Universal Inc.’, unashamedly giving it their all complete with disclaimer at the song’s conclusion (‘And if it’s not a hit, we were being ironic’).
Fine on its own, but coming after opener An Illusion – all choppy backbeats, dubby-ska and a near-ballad chorus – on which Smith ruminates, ‘Before I came here, I used to have an aim’ the effect and dripping sarcasm is bolstered.
Similarly on the naggingly catchy Dream Job, where Yard Act enter the disco with gusto, flexing their musical muscles while Smith glibly invites us to, ‘Step into my office, all night long. It’s ace’.
Yet sequenced after The Undertow, where he has pondered leaving his family behind while he goes on tour (‘What’s the guilt worth?’) amid sumptuous, sweeping strings and garagey guitars (amongst other things), it becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
The Undertow may be Yard Act’s finest hour to date, a spiritual cousin of standalone single The Trench Coat Museum and a song which recalls Pulp in their prime.
A word here for bassist Ryan Needham, who mimics all sorts of styles, being flexibly dubby on Fizzy Fish, or watertight on Down By The Stream.
The latter track is especially gnarly, befitting of a witty, possibly autobiographical narrative about youthful escapades backed by a Cypress Hill-esque beat.
Needham’s influence is also felt on the Beck-like Petroleum, which was inspired by an argument with Smith after the singer vocalised his disaffection onstage one night: ‘Imagine I had to give you my soul in the moment where my soul was asleep, for it happens sometimes.’
The immensely danceable When The Laughter Stops features an appearance by Katy J Pearson and includes a hook Franz Ferdinand wish they’d written, while the influence of producer Remi Kabraka Jnr is most keenly felt on Grifter’s Grief.
A regular producer of Gorillaz – long a favourite of Smith’s – the thin percussion instantly recalls the cartoon band.
Penultimate song Blackpool Illuminations finds Yard Act sitting on the psychiatrist’s chair, Smith regaling us with a yarn about the subjective nature of childhood memories (both his own and his son’s) before a telling pay-off (‘I attained perfection, so why the fuck was I worrying about what wankers would think of album two?’).
Lastly, closer A Vineyard For The North offers resolution of sorts, looking around at the bleakness of the environment in 2024 (‘Go steady, we’re at the mercy of the storm clouds now’) before dancing into the future.
What happens when your dreams come true? Life, with its difficulties, its good days and bad days, just carries on.
Luckily for Yard Act, having taken such a brave musical step forward, the immediate future looks rosy.
