Yard Act or Garden Party?

Words: Ollie Hopewell

Photo Credit: James Winstanley

Now then, Graham.

It’s pretty bold of Yard Act to open the album of their Junior Year with Empty Pledges, a determinedly aggressive track that reads like a condescending rant to someone you’ve not seen in some time, hence the inclusion of the line “I’ve done absolutely nothing since I last saw you four years ago”. This comes despite 2024’s Where’s My Utopia? being the stopgap between this latest release and their 2022 debut The Overload, but is this the classic cynicism of frontman James Smith or is it a confession that the Leeds fourpiece truly haven’t changed since their seminal explosion into the post-Lockdown Zeitgeist?

Well, to cut the story somewhat short, they certainly have changed since we first met them; like many others in that sludge of time around the backend of Covid, my first taste of Yard Act came from playing FIFA 22 and hearing the Leeds-based band rant and ramble through The Overload, a song that fast became a personal. The band somewhat struggled through the creation of their debut album with the vast majority of it being recorded separately a la Portishead’s Dummy, a hurdle the band once again had to overcome for their Sophomore record. But this time we’ve finally got the band recording and playing together, but this has come with its own problems within You’re Gonna Need A Little Music.

Yard Act’s penchant for sardonic reflections on everyday life certainly remain strong across the album, especially in the aforementioned Empty Pledges and Tall Tales, but you can really feel that there is a weight that has been lifted from them in their new-found ability to have the time to play and record together. You’re Gonna Need A Little Music feels lighter and more energised across it’s opening two thirds, we’ll get onto the final third, especially once you hit the back-to-back shot of adrenaline of Cherophobe Rock and Thrill Of The Chase; the former being a hardline injection of classic Overload-era Yard Act, while Thrill Of The Chase more closely resembles the experience of doing a questionable line in a crappy dive bar than anything related to music. I’ll add that I mean that in the most loving way possible as these two tracks are real stand outs.

In spite of this animated double-feature, at times You’re Gonna Need A Little Music feels more like a collection of singles than a complete album.

Now that their process has lost the intrusive chaos that was blocking their progress, it feels like a little bit of the fun has been lost along the way; maybe the fun was just an over-frustration being projected as a coping mechanism, something you’ll find easier to understand if you’ve been fortunate enough to see Yard Act play live, but there’s just something missing from this record that I can’t quite explain.

The singles New Beginnings and Redeemer were a very bright look into what this album was going to be, with New Beginnings almost being so far removed from anything the band have done before that you could be excused from not immediately recognising the funk-laden ballad as a Yard Act track - Ryan Needham’s bass really lands on this track.

Redeemer is the opposite side of the spectrum; ominous, desperate in narrative and vocal delivery, tense, and genuinely angry in the chorus, with the driving drums of Jay Russell really landing in this tune. The only bugbear is that the track is placed awkwardly in the final third of the album, sandwiched between Janey Said and Talky Talky People. The former track being a sarcasm-shifting tape that exposes Smith’s anxieties similar to The Overload’s Tall Poppies while the latter is, perhaps, one of the album’s weaker songs despite its brightness expanding the band’s musical palette past their established sound. Fiction feels very Redeemer-adjacent, but they just don’t quite stick the landing.

The finale of Over The Barrel wouldn’t be out of place in a Getdown Services album, and it’s probably the track that leans most towards the old fun of Yard Act as Smith vocally straddles between a sun-soaked crooner and doing his best Jarvis Cocker impression, but if just doesn’t quite fit here.

You’re Gonna Need A Little Music has given so much room for the Leeds fourpiece to blossom, and the shifts instrumentally have created a playground for guitarist Sam Shipstone to really experiment and have fun with a mixture of wandering riffs and tight refrains, but I can’t get over the nagging feeling that we’re just missing something. It’s a really Yard Act-y album, but maybe I’m just missing that ironic narrator who looks down on everyone and everything without realising he’s the biggest twat in the room. Yes, we’re talking about you, Graham. But the band have admitted that this felt like a joke that got out of hand and now they’re awkwardly avoiding this character whilst leaving the party, accidentally making eye contact and not breaking it as they hurry out the door and into the street.

Perhaps there’s a slight desperation or longing for it to stay the same on my part, and I’ll fully acknowledge and admit to that, but I’ll be gutted if this is the end of the Graham Era. That being said, I adore the majority of this record, and I cannot wait to see how Yard Act joyously perform their new stuff on stage.