Yard Act – Where’s My Utopia? Review

Dream Job called it. Yard Act return with an ace, top, mint, cool release in the form of Where’s My Utopia?. We all deserve a slice of glory and are even told it will trickle down to us, but where is the relief and pride when you fight against electric companies and worry about flushing the loo for fear Yorkshire Water representatives will swing in through the window like the villainous task force of a Schwarzenegger flick? Dare to dream and live it up with Yard Act on their second full release. They are not kicking against The Overload but move on from it, their post-punk has been refined and narratively dragged. These are the reflections of a band proud of their sound, and rightly so. Still in touch with the culture (or lack of it) and wailing away in frustration, this classy follow-up is a dream. 

Bank holiday baiting opens An Illusion, the long-standing constructs of the law questioned and the mentality of the public hit out against. Yard Act is consistent at pointing out the double standards of the older generation and the lack of change filtering through into the new era – and the likes of An Illusion and Dream Job herald the dissatisfaction which now plagues the country. Flutters on horses, hacking your own limbs off to avoid the NHS waiting list, all of it is packaged here under some wonderful artwork from Well Dweller. Where do you think we got this logo? Yard Act sound confident of new styles and throw themselves in at the deep end of electronic fuzz, heavy bass and moving their spoken word charms into clanging hip-hop form. Down by the Stream maintains this nicely, the storytelling wonders from James Smith working well with the drugged-out days and autobiographical apologies. 

Down by the Stream takes a Tall Poppies approach – the apathetic tone of a frontman considering the actions of his early years with Dean marks a shift. There are still references to their earlier works, the cycle of abuse and the pill-popping which does not reach those oh-so-satisfying highs, but it feels more in-step with the image Yard Act now carved out. Nothing short of hard graft, that. Guilt becomes an anxiety-riddled fixation intercut with David Thewlis blasting your ears with slices of William Shakespeare on When the Laughter Stops and album feature The Undertow, with plenty of strings and recognisable Yard Act features blurred together. A Bond-like riff at the end, the laughter leading into lead single Dream Job, Yard Act has a confident sense of narrative structure here.  

Inherently connected to the world around them and the country we plod through, Yard Act flexes their musical muscles by fine-tuning their sounds. All the essentials are still in place. What made them such a raw and pure force of energy on their debut two years ago is preserved, but the construction underway is a fascinating, exciting development for a band who sees the depravity around them and will not stand for it. Smith is responsible for some of the finest writing the band has seen so far, and so too the genre so far this decade. The generational gap grows wider and Fizzy Fish, Blackpool Illuminations and closer A Vineyard in the North tap into those north and south divides, the painful realisation of this lack of change. Essential work from the rest of the Yard Act troupe brings about a gutsy, risk-laden change of pace focusing in on danceability and punk squalor, the grip on society’s pulse tightens.