Yard Act may be laughing, but they never laugh at the truth; If anything, jokes are simply one way to get around this. The Leeds foursome's sense of humor was evident on their well-received debut, Excess, which was full of character studies that showed the wit and color in frontman James Smith's writing; Now that his lyrics are turning inward and the band is able to expand their sound beyond the minimal requirements of post-punk, these qualities will have to find other ways to shine. Where is my utopia? Full of hooks like its predecessor, but what makes it stand out is not its intensity but its ambition; With the help of Gorillaz drummer and producer Remy Kabaka Jr., Yard Act embrace the magpie style that often leads them in the direction of dance music, or at least music you can dance to. When Smith sings “What's guilt worth if you don't do anything with it?” On “The Undertow,” it's over a disco groove and a flurry of strings that do nothing to undermine the meta-commentary that follows: “We bar our souls on wax through tender prose / Only to starve them of all purpose when those hits hit the shelves.”
This is the sin, or part of it; Smith sneaks a more personal and damning confession earlier in the song, where he admits that he's a “slave to the voice,” knowing that his plight helps support his family and keeps him away from them. With fewer characters to mix, he finds nuance in his internal struggles, which the band empathizes with and allows plenty of space for. Sometimes the reconciliation of struggle and privilege manifests itself in confidence: the post-ironic declaration of “We Make Hits” is wrapped in more mainstream songwriting, taking aim at “the latest post-punk label” who “wouldn't have had much traction.” To ride on the tails of the dead and claim that their mockery is a way for them to subvert their vision instead. It's self-aware, of course, but not to exemplify the, “Great post-punk tropes you have there, it would be a shame if someone… sabotage Hmm.” It’s funny because you have to be very open-minded to be able to connect with most of this post-punk music, and subversion is obviously very far from what Yard Act music is currently about; Where is my utopia? Not a celebratory record because it assumes the futility of its titular question and skewers it caustically, but because it searches honestly and frantically for an answer: in the right voice, the right place, the right tempo.
As much as joy can be found in the immediacy and joy of songs like “We Make Hits” and “Dream Job,” Yard Act strikes gold when they pause to consider the weight of what they're dealing with, to express emotion. Instead of presenting an interesting story. “I can never tell you how I feel if I don't feel it / It's the standard I set for myself to destroy relationships,” Smith jokes on “Petroleum,” a song that does a great job of exposing the weirdness of relationships. Baring your soul and having to feed it for a living; It's there in Ryan Needham's grim bass line, Sam Shepstone's searing guitar, and the powerful percussion that gives way to a frenetic industrial outro, losing control as Smith did at a particularly chaotic show in Bognor Regis. On “The Undertow,” “What’s the value of guilt? / If you don’t do anything with it” rhymes with “If you choose when to feel it,” realizing that you have to acknowledge those difficult feelings even when they surface. worst time; Even when it means identifying a moment of fear so profound that it will prevent you from feeling things at all.
This is “Blackpool Illuminations,” the emotional high point of the album that is defined by its upbeat, playful tone. Earlier, on “Down by the Stream,” the transition from chatty, for lack of a better word, to actual spoken word, indicates the kind of honesty Smith displays for seven and a half minutes in the track's penultimate minute, where he seems to forget the pressures of About anything related to the band, he instead takes the opportunity to create a framework – talking to a therapist – to examine the complex nostalgia of visiting the seaside town with his parents and then seeing his own child walking on the same ground. the second?” he asks himself at the end, which may seem like a joke but does the opposite of belittling the revelation he has just received. “Are you making this up?” the therapist asks him at one point. “Oh, some of it, yes,” he replies, adding: “I didn’t want to burden anyone with the truth.” The truth is out there, of course, regardless of how it is presented or whether it is exactly how it happened. It's just that some songs are more adept at following the advice Katy J Pearson gave them several tracks before: “Never let anyone know what burden you're smuggling.” You can never hide from it, of course.
