Album Review: Yard Act - 'The Overload'
Fight or flight, regular pub-goer or anti-capitalist stuck in a corporate desk job, ‘THE OVERLOAD’ has every perspective from all walks of life to fill your needs.
Whether you just like cool guitar solos, heavy instrumentals but simple lyrics or the inverse, promising band Yard Act’s debut LP ‘The overload’ has it all. This album ties in perspectives from every end of the spectrum in thought-provoking, beautiful lyrics and does not disappoint from start to finish, which makes it clear to see why outlets like The Guardian and the NME have hailed them as their band to watch back in 2021.
The LP starts out strong with the faced paced and ever-so energetic title record ‘The Overload’. With strong northern accents hailing through the hefty guitars in a much thought ‘streets’ like style, the first track is definitely a strong opener from the boys. In this particular track, the lyrics from the verse seem to be the most prominent part of the song, rather than the usual format of a chorus becoming the most important, but to me I think that proves the point that the thoughts from these songs are undoubtedly the show stealers from this intrinsically clever LP.
‘Dead-horse’ begins much slower than the title track. With brilliant lyricism such as ‘I’m not scared of people who look like me, unlike you’ and an insanely catchy melody, this song makes you think about society and the world we’re currently living in as ‘fake news’, a repeated and clearly important lyric from this song, is ever so prominent in our current reality.
‘Rich’ is by far my favourite of the whole LP. The simplicity of the instrumentals excellently blends with the message that the song’s lyrics seem to tell. The song stems from the fears of your bubble bursting when you start the life that you love to live, especially seems plausible from a musician’s perspective when their music suddenly takes off, a phase of the job we all know well and can be carried through to all walks of life and career. And we all have that fear of losing something we’ve worked hard for, right?
The band show their range and musical dexterity with their shortest track called ‘Witness (Can I Get A’ which becomes very energetic towards the end of the record while contrasting this with their longest track ‘Tall Poppies’ which stands at 6 minutes long, showing us that no matter the length the song, these boys definitely know how to keep you on your toes with their brilliant writing and gorgeous instrumentals from their incredibly talented band.
Overall, the consistency of this LP is beautifully formatted. From a much faster pace with the title track to the final track ‘100% endurance’ this debut LP certainly solidifies the fact that this band are certainly not here to mess around and are truly one’s to watch. With lots of musical dexterity, comical wit and lyrically being able to take you straight into the shoes of someone else’s perspective of life, it’s clear to see that the boys of Yard Act are not prepared to let their new-found popularity and succession come to an end and are ready to give us even more, hopefully, in 2022!
Words by Bethany Atkins
