After building substantial buzz via their 2021 standout debut EP Dark Days, Leeds, U.K. quartet Yard Act have announced their full-length debut The Overload, coming Jan. 7, 2022, via Island Records and the band’s own Zen F.C. imprint. The characteristically slick and sardonic title track is out now alongside a music video.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with such esteemed peers as Dry Cleaning, TV Priest, Sinead O’Brien and Courting, Yard Act—James Smith (vocals), Ryan Needham (bass), Sam Shjipstone (guitar) and Jay Russell (drums)—make throwback post-punk that’s spiked with a distinctly modern, dark sense of humor and verbose, frequently Sprechesang vocals. “The Overload” finds the band ping-ponging between accessibility and idiosyncrasy: Over a frenetic, danceable groove and twitchy guitars, Smith deadpans non-sequiturs like “Kids these days, they think they’ve been outnumbered / but they’ve never even looked at an iron lung like I did once,” later posing as a Yard Act adviser to recommend “kicking that dickhead singer you got in out the band.” But the singer ditches his speak-singing approach on the track’s choruses, lamenting “the overload of discontent” on Yard Act’s biggest hook to date.
Smith says of The Overload (which opens with its title track) in a statement:
Lyrically, I think it’s a record about the things that we all do—we’re all so wired into the system of day to day that we don’t really stop and think about the constructs that define us. But also beyond that, it’s kind of exciting, because there’s still so much we don’t understand; how a hive mindset is forged, how information spreads, how we agree and presume things without thinking. Some people think more than others, but a lot of this sloganeering—“I’m on the left, I’m not wrong”—doesn’t achieve anything. I find it all so boring. I’m just not into that.
We all succumb to fear most of the time, and it explains a lot about why we make the decisions we do. I imagine the chorus delivered by a Greek chorus; omnipresent, and encompassing the themes of not only this song, but the whole album. That’s what “The Overload” is essentially. It’s everything happening at once, and it’s our tiny, feeble minds trying to process and cope with it. Good luck.
Check out Yard Act’s “The Overload” video (dir. James Slater [Major Lazer, Pale Waves]), the details of their forthcoming album and their tour dates down below. You can preorder The Overload here.
The Overload Tracklist:
01. The Overload
02. Dead Horse
03. Payday
04. Rich
05. The Incident
06. Witness (Can I Get A?)
07. Land Of The Blind
08. Quarantine The Sticks
09. Tall Poppies
10. Pour Another
11. 100% Endurance
The Overload Album Art:
Yard Act Tour Dates:
September
18 – Leicester @ Wide Eyed Festival
22 – Hamburg @ Reeperbahn Festival
23 – Dublin @ The Workman’s Club
24 – Hamburg @ Reeperbahn Festival
25 – Bristol @ Dot To Dot Festival
26 – Nottingham @ Dot To Dot Festival – SOLD OUT
27 – Cambridge @ Portland Arms
28 – Oxford @ The Bullingdon
29 – Bedford @ Esquires
30 – London @ The Lexington – SOLD OUT
October
01 – Ipswich @ Sound City Festival
02 – Oslo @ By:larm Festival
16 – Margate @ New In Town
22 – York @ A Slow Education – SOLD OUT
30 – Leeds @ Dark Arts – SOLD OUT
November
06 – Brighton @ Mutations Festival
13 – Glasgow @ Great Western Festival
21 – Paris @ Pitchfork Festival
February 2022
02 – Lille @ L’Aéronef
03 – Borgorhaut @ Trix
04 – Amsterdam @ Paradiso Kleine Zaal
05 – Hamburg @ Molotow
06 – Copenhagen @ Stengade
07 – Malmö @ Plan B
09 – Berlin @ Badehaus
10 – Cologne @ Blue Shell
11 – Luxembourg @ Rotondes
12 – Paris @ La Boule Noire
17 – London @ Village Underground – SOLD OUT
18 – Brighton @ Patterns
19 – Southampton @ The Joiners – SOLD OUT
21 – Bristol @ Exchange – SOLD OUT
22 – Cardiff @ Clwb Ifor Bach
23 – Nottingham @ Bodega Social – SOLD OUT
24 – Salford @ The White Hotel – SOLD OUT
25 – Hebden Bridge @ The Trades Club – SOLD OUT
26 – Leeds @ Brudenell Social Club – SOLD OUT
March 2022
01 – Newcastle @ The Cluny
02 – Edinburgh @ The Caves
03 – Glasgow @ Mono
April 2022
05 – London @ Earth
May 2022
11 – Bristol @ Trinity
18 – Nottingham @ Rescue Rooms
19 – Liverpool @ Zanzibar
20 – Leeds @ Irish Centre
21 – Manchester @ Band on the Wall
22 – Sheffield @ The Foundry
27 – Norwich @ Arts Centre
