I am going to post about the new Yard Act album, Where's My Utopia?, but I promised two years ago to write something about The Overload and never did. It would be difficult to talk about the new album without the context of The Overload. The Overload is Yard Act's manifesto on capitalism, post-Brexit U.K., hopelessness and hope. Before I dive into all of that, I would like to mention that the music on this album is fantastic. The guitars are bright and angular and the rhythm section is punchy and propulsive. It's easy to miss what's happening under the barrage of James Smith's clever social commentary, but this album rewards repeat listening. In general, I don't do song by song breakdowns of records, but it's warranted in this case. This one may go long.
"I'm shaking up my eight ball, cuz I'm trying to see what tomorrow's world has got in store for me." Not a bad opening line. Abdicating your human agency to the random chance of a magic eight ball. Why not? "How am I supposed to cope in the age of the gentrified savage? There's no hope." The second verse consists of the band receiving unsolicited advice on how to succeed in the music business by not playing originals and doing what you're told. "The overload of discontent. The constant burden of making sense."
"Dead Horse" is a scathing rebuke of post-Brexit U.K. Smith comes out swinging. "The last bastion of hope this once great nation had left was its humour. So be it through continued mockery this crackpot country, half full of cunts, will finally have the last laugh when dragged underwater by the weight of the tumour it formed when it fell for the fear-mongering of the national front's new hairdo." He continues. "Every card played is a statement made and there's always a new scapegoat to blame for it. England, my heart bleeds, why'd you abandon me? Ya, I abandoned you too, but we both know I wasn't the one lied to and I ain't scared of people who don't look like me, unlike you. So bold it is in its idiocy, so bound by its own stupidity, it does not realise it has already sentenced itself completely to death." My spell check doesn't like British spelling. Now he moves on to music consumers. "The last bastion of hope this once great nation had left was good music, but we didn't nurture it, instead choosing to ignore it. Yes we got trapped by the same crowd who don't like it less they've heard it before." And finally, the news media. "The last bastion of hope this once great nation had left was to converse in a manner that would pacify, divide and unite the room, but no one's talking and rational thought has been forced into submission by the medium through which all of our information is now consumed. Yes, fake news, it's fake news mate." Sounds familiar.
"Payday" pretty much says it in the title. "What constitutes a ghetto, eh?" Potholes and local councils? "We all make the same sound when we get mowed down and there are starving children in Africa, so go take your toy guns to Bosnia. Take the money, take the money, take the money and run!" "What constitutes real change? Are we even vaguely aware of where we terminate the muse? If all offers are final then how is it even possible for you to be both flush and completely principled?" "Rich" another track about the nature of money in our culture. The openly line is hilarious; "Almost by accident I have become rich through continued reward for skilled labour in the private sector and a genuine lack of interest in expensive things it appears I have become rich." Then, of course the narrator loves being rich and worries about going back to not being rich again. Then "The Incident" continues this theme by commenting on corporate culture. I love the line, "We created rules you can't find in the book. A different type of prison for a brand new type of crook."
"Witness" is a fun, 1 minute, 20 second punk rocker about wanting to sue God for slipping on the ice.
"The Land of the Blind" has another brilliant line, "And make no mistake we are living out our last days in the land of the blind where the one eyed man was king until he lost his fucking mind."
"Quarantine the Sticks" is about a business man (probably from "The Incident") getting busted and acting like he's the victim.
"Pour Another" addresses gender issues. "Pour another for my brother, sister or whatever other you prefer we call you. Yeah, there's no judgment, only understanding, when we're standing round hand in hand watching the world burn."
"Tall Poppies" is an seven minute epic about a local kid who becomes a mid-level footballer (soccer). It starts out as an alright story song. About halfway through, the music becomes more urgent and intense as the footballer's life spirals out of control and he eventually dies. Then the music slows down and James becomes more philosophical about life. "He was doomed, same as me, same as you, same as everyone I ever knew." The final section of the song is tremendous, "So many of us, just crabs in a barrel, no feasible means to escape the inevitable cull. There are those of us grow thick skins quick for the sake of their sins and the savvy folk who just keep their mouths shut and take it on the chin. We collide with each other and submit, we bare our teeth, we catch fish using giant metal ships and scream with laughter at 4 a.m. staggering home down moonlit country lanes. We cry because children are dying across the sea and there is nothing we can do about it whilst we benefit from bombs dropped which we had no part in building. We are sorry. Truly we are sorry. We are just trying to get by too."
That's quite a bit of hopelessness. But then the album ends with "100% Endurance". "Death is coming for us all, but not today. Today you're living it, hey! You're really feeling it, give it everything you got knowing you can't take it with you, all you ever needed to exist has always been within you. Give me some of that good stuff, that human spirit. Cut it with 100% endurance." Peace.