How do you fight the end of the world? With an unfiltered pop-rock. That’s what Yard Act proposes through Where’s My Utopia? Review.
WHERE’S MY UTOPIA – YARD ACT
Yard Act is making things personal with their sophomore album Where’s My Utopia? If An Illusion has something heavy and daunting in its riffs, We Make Hits is a true bop. It’s impossible to resist its flow and its forward attitude. The irony is deliciously well-balanced. However, when Down By The Stream growls, the dancefloor seems far away. It’s ominous and really fits the end-of-the-world aesthetics. It’s confirmed once again by the desert sounds of the introduction of The Undertow and its sublime orchestral arrangements.
Once more, the band decided that, after shadows, it’s time to resuscitate the dancefloor. And it’s up to Dream Job to light it up, echoing perfectly with We Make Hits, catchy and efficient. Getting these two to follow each other would have been really nice in the narrative, but the breaks between them are also welcomed breathers. For example, with When The Laughter Stops, featuring Katy J Pearson. Especially because of the chaos contained in Fizzy Fish and Petroleum. But it’s not an unthought chaos. It’s deep and introspective. And introspection that’s found on all tracks.
For this second album, more open, more adventurous, Yard Act confirms that it’s a band to keep an eye on. A band that will face adversity with as much seriousness as humour. Grifter’s Grief and Blackpool illuminations are two beautiful examples showing it off, the first one short and direct, the second as an epic story and an intimate painting of a memory, a dream, a utopia. To seal the record, and without caring so much about what we can think of it, A Vineyard to the North is the perfect combination of everything heard so far. Touches of disco-pop, darker spoken verses… everything’s in it. Yard Act asks a great question with Where’s My Utopia? And it seems the answer for them is in creation. Excellent.
