The 11-track record was produced by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Aldous Harding) between Bristol and Leeds earlier this year, and will be out on 7th January 2022 through Zen F.C./ Island. Pre-order your copy here.
The Overload is a record of great dexterity and curation, the output of a band who were raised on a 00s digital-revolution buffet of wide musical influences. Growing up on US MTV Hip-Hop, minimal 70s No-Wave and sharp-witted British indie, Yard Act benefit from this rich tapestry of musical near-history, using it to create something that feels like more than a trendy pastiche.
“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,” says vocalist James Smith. “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. Gammons, Karens, Snowflakes, whatever – I find it all so boring. I'm just not into that.”
While time-travelling in parts sonically, The Overload weaves a very-2021 storyline. Across the album’s 11 tracks, an unnamed character – a bricolage of characters that Smith has met, imagined, or himself been – finds himself in quite the financial pickle, ricocheting from desk job to desperate illicit activity to police investigation, before culminating in the kind of half-cut personal epiphany that even the most law-abiding among us could relate to. Bookended by cheeky cameo’s from ‘Fixer Upper’s' Graeme and a clear structure of four parts, there is no getting around it — Yard Act have written a soap opera.
The Overload is a political record, but in the same way that all great observations of human nature are – a messy, complex, knowingly hypocritical snapshot of our current state of play.
Check out the album's tracklist and watch the video for new single "The Overload" below.
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
Tags: Yard Act
