YARD ACT The Overload (2022 UK limited edition Artist Webstore exclusive 11-track LP pressed on Tall Poppies Red & Black Vinyl - Pulling off a debut album in a pandemic isn’t easy but somehow Yard Act have made it work. Recording with Ali Chant at his Bristol studio 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 currentstate of play. Including the singles Land Of The Blind Payday 100% Endurance the title track and more. Complete with its picture inner and lyric printed insert the picture sleeve has been autographed by all four members and the eye-catching vinyl shows the odd cosmetic paper mark and minimal signs of play) Track Listing: A1. The Overload A2. Dead Horse A3. Payday A4. Rich A5. The Incident A6. Witness B1. Land Of The Blind B2. Quarantine The Sticks B3. Tall Poppies B4. Pour Another B5. 100% Endurance 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. While time-travelling in parts sonically The Overload weaves a very-2021 storyline. The group made the decision early on to leave ‘Fixer Upper’ and ‘Dark Days’ off their album debut (“it sounds arrogant but we felt we had enough good songs without ‘em”) but the joyous specificity of their early lyrical observation is still in fine evidence plotting a visceral satirical journey through capitalism and greed. 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. Pulling off a debut album in a pandemic isn’t easy but somehow Yard Act have made it work. Recording with Ali Chant (PJ Harvey Perfume Genius Aldous Harding) at his Bristol studio those prolific demos have been sharpened down into something that speaks to the times we live in creating a statement of intent that survives on nuance – a record of retro influences recorded in a modern way that manages to poke fun at society without punching down from a place of lefty superiority. 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.