Leeds post-punk quartet Yard Act release their second album, `Where’s My Utopia?` this month which has been tagged as a pop, party album, inspired by disco.
The album opens with `An Illusion` which has an enticing kind of trippy dance like vibe with a fairly surreal stream of consciousness shared atop which has some more melodic sung sections as the number involves. An illusion is usually a form of deception but here there`s no trickery just a seductive earworm of a track. I read that `We Make Hits` is an ode to friendship and the unfiltered joy you feel when you’re making music with the people you hold dear in your life. To me it had a hint of Chumbawamba when they veered towards including a more dance like texture to their sound.
If the last track had a Chumbawamba sense then `Down by the Stream` has a Public Enemy meets De La Soul touch. Another delightful foot-tapper of a number. A reminiscent view on adolescent shenanigans including bullying that`s maybe a little uncomfortable now but that`s the folly of youth. There`s a real sense of introspection on the Existential meaning of life with `The Undertow` which has a rhythmic beat and orchestral strings spliced throughout.
`Dream Job` is written about the struggle of working in a suddenly successful band, and that getting to do what you’ve wanted to do since you were a teenager doesn’t actually solve your problems. A funky, disco tinged dance floor filler, if ever there was one. There`s a languid kind of pace to `Fizzy Fish` which does burst to life occasionally as it progresses. The lyrical content and musical accompaniment is shared in a manner that mirrors the relaxed opinions shared.
`Petroleum` was written after a band meltdown in of all places the West Sussex seaside resort of Bognor Regis. It`s a swaying thoughtful indie dance tinged inward looking musing which may have proved to be cathartic. Bristolian singer-songwriter Katy J Pearson guests on the cynical dance work out which is `When the Laughter Stops` with British actor David Thewlis, reciting part of Shakespeare`s political tragedy Macbeth at the end. Katy`s vocals are joyous as she really puts her stamp on this sneering composition.
`Grifter’s Grief` is a sparkly shimmering rolling rhythmic number with what sounds like finger clicks and at times childlike melodies. A song that may well be a metaphor alluding to fraudsters or people who engage in petty or small-scale swindling whose lives seem to come apart as there`s always more competent charlatans out there.
We have a strange submission in `Blackpool Illuminations` which begins with a monologue about a youthful outing to this annual lights festival or celebration before this chain of thought veers into other visits when older then heads off-piste into more surreal observations shared over a jazzy funky trippy background aural soundscape.
The album concludes with `A Vineyard for the North` a further bizarre oration dispensed over a soulful synthy funky resonance that touches on wine making amongst other topics that crop up on the way. A sentiment of grasping the nettle and doing something that brings joy into your life may be the mantra here.
James Smith (vocals, lyrics), Ryan Needham (bass), Sam Shipstone (guitar) and Jay Russell (drums) who make up Yard Act have certainly given us much food for thought with `Where’s My Utopia?`. Difficult second album, maybe not, more like different second album and to me that is the nub. It would have been easy to re-hash a version of the band`s debut album, `The Overload` but no this is much more challenging both lyrically and auditory.
Whilst I don`t profess to understand all or indeed much of the lyrical content, I could take what I wanted and just wallow in the music shared. A mix of dance, funk, disco, pop, post-punk all melded and blended together wonderfully.
As the title of Yard Act, West Yorkshire`s finest`slatest releasealludes to `Where’s My Utopia?`, well I think in time most of us will say our heaven, paradise, Eden, Shangri-La or call it what you want will be unearthed in the forty plus minutes shared within this release.
Rating 9/10
