Yard Act: Where’s My Utopia?

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I’m not really sure how to classify Yard Act. Their first track on Where’s My Utopia?, their second proper album, feels a bit like a latter-day Beck tune. But way more British. And then we get all dancy and shit. Which makes me wonder if The Rapture run through the post-punk weirdness of a disco machine and the Englishness of The Streets is something we need in 2024. I wouldn’t call it a party record, but it isn’t not a party record. Do we remember when that was a thing? Like back in the Soup Dragons, EMF and Jesus Jones days? Where it was okay to dance to rock music? Well, this ain’t quite that — especially when they get all deep and poetic toward the end of the album — but it certainly leans into something disco and genre-y the band didn’t on its way more rockin’ debut, The Overload.

Usually mid albums grow on me. I listen to them the first time and they make little impression. And then I hear them a second time and things come out that didn’t in my first listen. And I’m smitten. I mean, not always, of course. But sometimes. It’s rare — or at least more rare — that I hear something the first time, think it’s cool and then the second listen makes me look askance and ask what the hell I thought I heard on my first spin. Because this, this thing I’m now listening to, does not resemble the thing I thought I heard on my first go ’round. This album is that. And I think I was blinded by the production and what it sounds like in headphones. Because it does, without a doubt, sound good. The bass is cool as shit. The backing vocals and the harmonies and all the instrumentation — even the strings at times — just sound good.

But then… Then you start to actually hear the songs. And you’re like good god, what it this? Why am I disco dancing my way into stereo blindness? What in the name of all that is Blondie am I hearing? I thought this was cool with its sing-songy Brit talk-singing white-guy rap thing. But then songs like “Dream Job” go all platform shoe on me. With female backing vocals and some Kool and the Gang nonsense. It is soooo pop, it makes my throat swell with its sweetness. And then it veres into some weirdness that for moments reminds me of the 80s group, ABC. Not a group anyone has named checked ever. But don’t tell Yard Act that when they have a track like “Petroleum” that captures that group and its chimey pop so exactly. Or so my brain tells me based on my last hearing How to Be a… Zillionaire! probably 35 years ago. Trust me, though.

My point is that I thought this was a pretty gnarly record (in a good way) the first time ’round. Less so the second. And then the third time, I was like, yeah… I’m not sure if I like it or hate it. Or just like parts of it and absolutely hate other parts. I think, ultimately, that I’m confused by what they’re going for here. Is it supposed to be ironic? This verging-on-cheese pop followed by soulless soul music? I think when you have a single called “We Make Hits” — which, funny enough, is the best track on the album by far – you are doing some sort of pop band cosplay. And that is not cool. Not at all.