An occasional feature between now and mid-December, hopefully giving you time to put some records on your list to Santa. It’s not a rundown by any stretch of the imagination, but simply a chance for me to mention a few albums that have brought me immense pleasure thanks to them being released in 2024.
Where’s My Utopia? – Yard Act
The difficult second album? That’s certainly the view of quite a few folk who were mesmerised by The Overload, the 2022 debut album from Leeds-based indie rock-popsters, Yard Act but weren’t keen on the different direction taken by this year’s Where’s My Utopia?
Here’s the thing. Many of the positive words written about Yard Act’s emergence centred on them being from a similar lineage to The Fall, and there’s certainly enough musically and lyrically on the debut to back that up. But it does seem logical, given that Mark E Smith & co never rested on their laurels or sought to release two similar sounding records in a row, that Yard Act would go down a different road with the second album.
It’s not just the music which ended up changing. James Smith‘s lyrics on this record reflect what has come with a fair bit of fame and a little bit of fortune, and there’s certainly no clear indication that he’s terribly happy about it all.
It’s always difficult, if not impossible, to listen to a band’s second album and compare it with what came before. I made my mind up, very early on, that I would try and take things a bit differently with Where’s My Utopia? given the way the band were talking months ahead of it being released. They had said that once the final shows around the promotion of The Overload were out of the way, it was going to be a whole new beginning. As such, I tried, to look upon this as a debut and to take each song on its own merits without focussing on the past.
It wasn’t easy as I didn’t like the first advance single Dream Job which appeared in October 2023. It felt too much in thrall to second-rate disco music. Thankfully, the next single didn’t disappoint in any shape or form:-
Yard Act channelling their inner Beck. It was also by now quite clear that at least one character in the video was following a developing story-line.
There would be two further advance singles, which again continued the storyline.
We Make Hits was a kind of throwback to the debut album, with its jarring and complicated sound. It certainly wasn’t a conventional song to be released as a single, albeit it had a really catchy and infectious chorus. And then came this:-
Poptastic stuff. One that will get you up on the dancefloor when it gets aired at the indie disco with a chorus, courtesy of guest vocalist Katy T Pearson, that’s an absolute killer. It’s only when you listen closely to the lyric, do you realise that it’s really quite dark and disturbing:-
No one needs to know about the burden that you’re smuggling
You dry your eyes at the gate to hide the struggling
The stories that you’re juggling
The fear you must be funnelling
Bury ’til you’re burrowing
Pain is such a funny thing
And to top it all off, there’s a spoken contribution at the end, consisting of lines written by Shakespeare for the doomed character of Macbeth, delivered by the acclaimed actor David Thewlis, who had appeared in the band’s video for 100% Endurance, the last single lifted from The Overload. It all makes for something truly astonishing, and it’s up there among my favourite songs of the year.
In some ways, this all meant the actual release of Where’s My Utopia? on 1 March could have been an anti-climax. Four advance singles with clever and expensive looking videos meant there were just seven new songs to take on board. They weren’t perhaps as immediate as the singles, but most of them had a depth and quality that really benefit from just sitting back and taking them all in. Smith really bares his soul on a couple of them, one of which, Down By The Stream, reflects on an incident from his youth, which doesn’t show him up in a particularly good light.
Then there’s this….
mp3: Yard Act – Blackpool Illuminations
A seven-and-a-half minute epic story which takes in childhood, teenage debauchery and the worries and joys of being a new parent. With an absolute killer and unexpected last line. Over a tune that shows just how different Yard Act are from all of their contemporaries.
In heaping all this praise on the album, I do have to say that in years to come, when both it and The Overload have been back on the shelf for a few years, I’ll likely find myself listening more to the debut, but that’s really down to just how consistently good The Overload is from start to end, while there’s a couple of moments on Where’s My Utopia? where it dips marginally.
Album #3 should be fascinating.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
This will be near the top (possibly even #1) for me this year, and I think it’s a much stronger album than the debut, which I still struggle to love. It’s a much more personal album, and James has emerged as a character in his own songs now, in the same way that Jarvis did back in the day. Tracks like Blackpool Illuminations and the one about him picking on the kid who was a bit different at school… they’re so honest, so rich in detail… nothing on The Overload comes close (in my humble opinion).
The only thing wrong with this record is that they didn’t find room for Trenchcoat Museum, despite the opening track making sly reference to it.
I still cannot get into this record. Like you, I loved the first record, and really fell for Yard Act when I saw them live.. But ‘Where’s My Utopia?’ really left me cold. One or two tracks are decent, but even after several listens, I still cannot find anything I can hang onto. It kind of goes in one ear and straight out the other with very little hooking onto my brain.
Probably a me problem, but it doesn’t even grace my Top 50 albums of the year, let alone my top 5.
I’m with you on this one JC.
Not as immediate as the debut maybe but lots to enjoy, digest and dissect on repeated listens.
A definite fave of mine this year.
Yard Act can be a bit of a complicated listen, in a good way. Like the Fall at times, or other wordy groups like Arctic Monkeys. But they delivered in concert and that won me over.
I love “100% Endurance” and “The Trench Coat Museum” (and of course the two fantastic videos James Slater shot for them). That’s enough for me to listen to every new Yard Act song and try to like it. [sk]