When they first kickstarted their career, in what could arguably have been deemed slightly too meteoric a fashion, the overwhelming impression with Yard Act was one of raw talent which had not quite yet come to its full realisation.
From the get-go, the band possessed an innate on-stage charisma of the sort that is difficult to both fake and replicate, and which, in places, made up for the occasional hesitation or misstep in songwriting. That sort of magnetism, however, is hard to fully translate from the live stage to the studio, and the band’s first two records, while well thought through and with a clear identity, always carried a lingering sense that there was something still half-baked about them, a promise not quite fulfilled.
Yard Act are now back with ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’, their third long player and, by their own admission, the first to be recorded as a full band in a studio (vocalist James Smith describes the first two efforts as “both laptop records, essentially”). No doubt the creative freedom that comes with the ability to concentrate on the work at hand and feed off each other’s energy played a part in making the album what it is: a much better representation of the intense, mildly confrontational, electric vibe of their live sets. But there is more to it than that; there is a greater confidence, a swagger almost, that is justified and supported by the fact that this record, with its eleven tracks, is by far their most mature and internally cohesive yet.
“I’ve got absolutely nothing new to say”, the lyrics of opener ‘Empty Pledges’ proclaim, and in a sense this is completely true: ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ is very much continuing the same conversation started by previous Yard Act releases, going deeper and turning the screws tighter rather than offering a change of direction. It is a refinement of sound and attitude, which feels like the natural end stage of an evolution. Through that evolution, a voice that has always been somewhat punk-adjacent became harder and dirtier, almost hard rock in place, with biting vocals and sharp, insistent guitars supporting the bulk of the tracks. The pace is fairly relentless throughout (see for instance the fierce, and aptly titled, ‘Thrill Of The Chase’, one of the most impactful tracks in the record through its interplay of rough and melodic) and there is a nonchalant leaning into spoken-word narration that works well with the general mood of the album (both the opening track and ‘Janey Said’ being excellent examples of this). Producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen has worked with Nine Inch Nails in the past, and there is definitely an echo of that in this record, in the way the constant press of repeated guitar phrases and the hammering of the drums become almost haunting; take ‘Redeemer’, for instance, as an example. But there are other influences too, coming from a softer and more playful place. ‘New Beginnings’ starts almost as a nod to the psychedelic era Beatles and then goes somewhere else entirely. ‘Fiction’ has something of Talking Heads to it. ‘Cherophobe Rock’ has fast-paced sections that are vaguely reminiscent of all things, of later Guns N’ Roses. Title track ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ is eminently danceable with a touch of sleaze in the vocals that rings in places like an unlikely echo of Leonard Cohen.
Raw energy is certainly not lacking in this record, but raw energy will only take you so far, and here the rest of the road is travelled through finesse and the clever construction of a narrative. There is a strong feeling that the tracks in this album were picked thoughtfully and performed as parts of a whole. While it is more than possible to imagine them played live, perhaps the greatest step forward from the band’s previous offerings is that they don’t need to be imagined as such to work. The earlier albums required the feat of imagination of summoning the live set in order to fully deliver their punch; ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ carries an ambience of its own. The fact that it punches considerably harder does not detract from its ability to stand up purely as a studio album. It is often a marker of a band’s maturity when it becomes hard to pinpoint what genre of music exactly they are playing; here the feeling is that Yard Act have at last fully shed the (always vague, after all) post-punk mantle to fully express their own voice. There is no longer a need to tentatively rely on any association with past glories of British rock. This is the work of a band that sounds good and knows it sounds good.
Perhaps the most charming thing about this album is that it is somewhat out of time in that its main personality is somehow a classic rock one. It has, if not exactly the sound, the spirit of the old classic rock glories: confrontational, confident, and a little bit sexy. Records with this specific kind of soul are sadly thin on the ground these days. The rock spirit, nonetheless, is hard to kill, and Yard Act have just offered a more than convincing demonstration of why.
Chiara Strazzulla
Image: ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ Official Album Cover
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