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“I attained perfection / So why the fuck was I still wondering what wankers would think of album two?” murmurs James Smith, Yard Act’s inimitable frontman. It’s the concluding remark on ‘Blackpool Illuminations’, a seven-minute spoken-word tale that vividly recounts trips to the seaside town with his parents, eventually juxtaposed against those with his own child. Indeed, this “perfection” he refers to is not their Number Two debut album ‘The Overload’ (2022), but his son, born in amongst the pandemonium of Yard Act’s sharp rise to fame.
Musings on fatherhood and his relationship with his folks (“I think you’re most in love with your parents”) are resemblant of a changed Smith, who simultaneously wrestles with the trials and tribulations of their success on ‘Where’s My Utopia?’, the Leeds quartet’s second album. Its goal was to merely make sense of their newfound status, plucked from spare moments amidst their record-breaking, relentless touring schedule. Always destined to outgrow the shallow ‘post-punk’ label, the band flex their creative muscles on the eclectic 11-song collection that tears down the very concept of genre.
Ever ones to poke fun at themselves, Smith wastes no time doing so (“Post-punk’s latest poster boys”) on ‘We Make Hits’, a track that re-affirms their underlying motivation: four brothers who relish their shared songwriting experience: “We just wanna have some fun before we’re sunk.” The clearest example of this is lead single ‘Dream Job’, which finds its place as the record’s accidental party number. It’s far from an open-top bus parade, though Smith smiles and waves in superlatives, simultaneously taking a dig at the “game” Yard Act continue to navigate their way through: “I place a bet on a game knowing no one will score”. As they recently noted to The Times: “We’ve hit the big time but we still can’t afford a house”.
Co-produced by Remi Kakaba Jr of Gorillaz, ‘Where’s My Utopia?’ is sonically playful from the get-go. Tracks like ‘The Undertow’ could have certainly found a home on Gorillaz’ 2010 concept album ‘Plastic Beach’, scurrying between hurried string sections and a throbbing bassline. Light shades of disco and art-rock take centre stage on ‘Grifter’s Grief’ and ‘When The Laughter Stops’, the latter of which enlists Katy J Pearson to help deliver the album’s most vital message. As Smith sheds a light on the rut he once found himself in (“the victim shot dead in the cold open”), we’re reminded of the layer of vulnerability that exists between the zingers.
In between samples from their comedy pals – standups Nish Kumar and Rose Matafeo – and references to all sorts of uniquely British phenomena: from ‘Fizzy Fish’ to Calpol and, er, Milton Keynes. Where’s My Utopia?’ marks an outlandish yet assertive second chapter for Yard Act, going toe-to-toe with the peculiar world that we find ourselves in.
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There’s a deliberate defiance in the title for Lucy Rose’s fifth album, ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’. Speaking to NME earlier this year, she detailed the health issues she faced post-pregnancy that left her with eight broken vertebrae in her back: “Life was definitely upside down – I couldn’t walk or move, and breathing was excruciating”.
She credits a community of musicians – Paul Weller, US rapper Logic and producer Kwes – as encouraging her to create with freedom as she navigated her recovery. ‘This Ain’t The Way You Go Out’, then, is less about bold statements but recognising the quiet, personal victories on that journey. On ‘Over When it’s Over’ she sings that they’ll find “our way through” an embattled situation with both grit and grace. It’s particularly moving after ‘Could You Help Me’’s appeal for some kind of healing: “Now I’m learning / How terribly lonely illness is / On a hard day / Has there ever been another way?”
Now, she brings in a dancey shuffle to ‘Could You Help Me’ and ‘Life’s Too Short’ and a fearless veracity on ‘The Racket’; these are some of the most interesting and sonically varied songs of her entire career. This is, one hopes, the start of an intriguing new chapter.
