Where’s My Utopia?

Yard Act

explicit

Released on 01/03/2024 by Universal-Island Records Ltd.
Main artists: Yard Act
Genre: Rock

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With their debut album, 2022's The Overload, Leeds outfit Yard Act fell squarely under the umbrella of post-Brexit post-punk while managing to stand out with an in-your-face, disgruntled delivery by vocalist James Smith, timely political subject matter, alternately playful and biting wit, and an infectiously nervy musical bearing. The album shot to number two in the U.K. and snagged a Mercury Prize nomination, so it would be reasonable to question how they would follow it up. It turns out that the group left their collective foot on the accelerator by returning with all the idiosyncratic attributes of their debut while majorly expanding their sound with a kitchen-sink approach to sampling and genre (cited inspirations span Fela Kuti, Ennio Morricone, 2000s dance-pop, and more), all aided by bringing Gorillaz's Remi Kabaka, Jr. on board to produce. The resulting Where's My Utopia? gets the groove going with the weird and warped "An Illusion," which, after a sampled "It’s now my great pleasure to introduce to you the greatest voice of the entire century," opens with a wearily spoke-sung, "It's a bank holiday/So all the hospitals are shut/Guess I'll have to saw off my own foot." After developing into something cinematic enhanced by strings and sunshine pop-styled backing vocals, that's followed by the funky, half-rapped "We Make Hits," a diatribe against landlords and income disparity that makes reference to the Grammatics, Nile Rodgers, and "post-punks latest poster boys," while calling the titular hitmakers "two broke millennial men" ("And we'd do it again"). The irreverence continues on the more autobiographical "Down by the Stream," which employs old-school hip-hop befitting millennial childhood remembrances. While the album is loaded with memorable rants, self-deprecating confessions, and party-hearty rhythms, it still provides a showstopper in the form of the seven-and-a-half-minute "Blackpool Illuminations," an engrossing, memoir-style narrative punctuated by sniffles and second-party questions and underscored by a gyrating groove, at least until Smith pulls the rug out from under us a minute from the end. Among other entries, the wiry "Petroleum" examines relationship self-sabotage, and singer/songwriter Katy J. Pearson makes an appearance on the driving "When the Laughter Stops," whose stanzas include learning that a much-anticipated audition is for the role of a corpse. Wry, riveting, chaotic, and infectious throughout, Where's My Utopia? easily upstages what was an impressive debut.

© Marcy Donelson /TiVo