For Yard Act’s 2022 debut, The Overload, the quartet chiseled flamboyant caricatures of British life and portrayed their flawed country with an abrasive, punishing tone. Drummer Jay Russell kept to stark rattles, Sam Shipstone patched in his scratchy electric guitar, and Ryan Needham needled through grumbling basslines. “The knotty roots of a shameful past will never let it be,” rapped James Smith in “Land of the Blind.” “Each new shoot is an escape root/Loot the debris/And make no mistake, we are living out our last days.” But soon, they started getting nostalgic. 2024’s follow-up, Where’s My Utopia?, dusted off the Gorillaz CDs for a more humorous, synth-rock approach. Now on their third album, You’re Gonna Need a Little Music, they resuscitate garage rock and Britpop, throwing in pompous brass-band breaks and groovy, feel-good pop hooks for an uplifting album that’s something of a let-down.
Recording in Los Angeles and their hometown of Leeds with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Yard Act emerged from months of uninterrupted jam sessions with a set of solid, alt-rock tunes governed by a vague, confident feeling rather than the pointed character studies of their best work. “What’s wrong with a little direction?” Smith winks in the disco-flavored title track. “I don’t think we need to pursue it.” There’s no thesis to defend: He just wants to turn up the radio, rip a guitar solo, and remember Franz Ferdinand.
You're Gonna Need a Little Music sounds so indebted to a lineage of great British alt-rock bands that it’s easy to forget what made this British alt-rock band special in the first place. “New Beginnings” is a baggy head-bobber with thick basslines, clattering drums, and a coarse guitar solo that spins into eternity. Its chorus (“Purge yourself of sin/Resist the urge to grin/Spend your winnings on new beginnings/Breathe deep and take it in”) is written like an Oasis crowdpleaser—simplistic, cleverly populist, chant-like. “Talky Talky People” embodies a Blur-like playfulness, with all four members harmonizing over lively percussion and easygoing rock guitars. But Smith’s energy goes toward perfecting the Damon Albarn impression in its silly hook rather than galvanizing the otherwise lackluster depictions of friendship in his lyrics.
The backward-looking sound sometimes pushes the band toward exciting switch-ups. On “Thrill of the Chase,” Russell drums to a breakneck, garage-influenced rhythm, and Smith huffs for breath as his desperate pleas for mental clarity dart from the back of his throat. It’s a sonic retread of early Arctic Monkeys, but it still sounds electric. They also achieve the celebratory brass-band sound in “Over the Barrel,” even if it plays like a bigger-budget Jamie T song. The album’s finale is exhilarating: Smith lets his composed, honeyed vocals glide over a frazzled piano and guitar, as his bandmates tear into their instruments. Compared to a song like “Redeemer,” where haunted clangs overdramatize Smith’s lukewarm frustrations with privilege and the inability to “be angry at the world/From a crippling disposition,” these songs have a believable character, stabilizing his chaotic swirl of uncertainty, fear, and joy.
Yard Act can make a decent throwback rock record, but they lose a lot of their personal touch. The band was once distinguished by their feisty character, needing only a bare-bones rock kit and an eloquent songwriter to poeticize cultural rot. From the opening track “Empty Pledges,” Smith narrates from a new, more comfortable lifestyle in London, admitting in a quiver that he’s still learning to describe it with the same prowess. “I’m still chipping away,” he offers. “But I’ve got absolutely nothing/Absolutely nothing new to say.” And so, Yard Act rely on what’s already been said, which is guaranteed to be pretty good.
