Yard Act ‘Where’s My Utopia?’ – Review

Yard Act’s ‘Where’s my Utopia’ is an improvement on its predictable, Post-Punk predecessor ‘The Overload.’ There is a loose, playful approach that sees them borrow from louche 80s pop as much as The Fall. More than that, the group seem indebted to Gorrilaz; particularly their 2010 opus ‘Plastic Beach’ (something I suspected even before discovering the record was co-produced by Gorillaz’ Remi Kabaka Jr). 

The dubby meloncholia of ‘The Undertow’ and ‘Blackpool Illuminations’ recall some of Damon Albarn’s more spaced out ballads, while the genre hopping, pace flipping ‘Grifter’s grief’ updates ‘Superfast Jellyfish’ for 2024. Elsewhere frontman James Smith becomes particularly animated when considering his role as a young father and the balance between family life and his burgeoning career. More interestingly, it prompts him to reconsider on his own youth and the mistakes he made along the way. The aforementioned ‘Blackpool Illuminations’ recounts a childhood accident while album standout ‘Down by the Stream’ is a riveting  reflection on bullying, masculinity and reckless abandon.

The risk taking is admirable but better in theory than execution. At one point singer James Smith puts it perfectly when he says ‘I’m gonna keep flinging shit until enough of it sticks’. This seems to have been a genuine philosophy. Lead single ‘We Make Hits’ is a good example of how little things actually gel together. Smith recounts the group’s trajectory from a bedroom rock band to major label pop wannabes. The song falls down on its titular promise – It doesn’t sound like a hit and, in fact, the band have yet to write one. This is a funky, fun song but it’s far too busy with clashing ideas for any hook to truly land.

Lyrically, the song is an undergrad Creative writing student’s fever drink of clunky rhymes and overcooked vocabulary: ‘post-punk’s latest poster boys wouldn’t have got to ride on the coattails of thе dead, and claim that their derision Is a vеhicle for their vision of subverting it instead / now subliminal exposure is exploding in your head’. Across the record, Smith says so much without ever saying much at all. It’s the logical end point of the style Matty Healey introduced (to much greater effect) a decade ago. Style over substance doesn’t even begin to cut it. ‘Fan fiction caught in the act is a fact if you get your back backed up at that.’ Come again?

There’s something incredibly grating about James Smith; he positions himself somewhere between Mark E Smith and Mike Skinner but he’s not as sharp as either. I find myself getting irritated by his affected tone, glaring rhymes and ironic distance. And considering he takes up so much oxygen on the group’s second album, that might just be the deal breaker.  Judging by the positive reviews though, I might be in a minority. Yard Act are gaining traction with an audience growing tired of the self-serious spoken-word post-punk that has dominated British indie for a few years (Dry Cleaning, Wet Leg, Porridge Radio, BCNR). Yard Acts’s bright and amusing diversions present a genuinely interesting, if divisive, alternative. 

6/10

MGMT ‘Loss of Life’ – Review

MGMT’s 2008 escapist, indie pop classic ‘Time to Pretend’ was a send up of Rock N Roll debachery used, unironically, to soundtrack a scene of excess in this winter’s streaming smash ‘SaltBurn’.

It’s not the first time MGMT have been misunderstood by the mainstream, nor is it the first time they’ve found a song repurposed to great success in a contemporary context. In 2020, the gothy ‘Little Dark Age’ struck a chord with Tik Tok viewers wanting escape for different reasons. Its imposing, claustrophobic sound along with its thematic anxieties about crumbling governance resonated with an audience in lockdown.

Fifth album ‘Loss of Life’ does not seem particularly designed to capitalise on this renewed good will. It’s a modestly ambitious, mid-tempo collection of sly ballads, contemplative folk rockers and frazzled freak-outs. ‘Time to Pretend’ part two it decidedly isn’t. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s followed MGMT’s trajectory; they followed their multi-platinum debut with the  uncompromising ‘Congratulations’ while that record felt positively poppy compared to the self titled record that came out three years later. MGMT have never been interested in chasing their tail – in fact, they actively enjoy disrupting expectations. They continue to do so here – albeit, in quieter and softer ways.

‘Loss of Life’ slows the tempo down to a walking pace. Singer Andrew VanWyngarden purrs and coos in a feathery voice that occasionally undersells the potential of the material. These songs sounds great in the background but they are fairly hard to connect to on a deeper level. In fact the album as a whole feels curiously detached for something so besotted by the power ballad (a handful of these tracks would be perfect soundtracking the climax to a 1980s John Hughes movie). Perhaps it’s something to do with VanWyngarden’s lyrics which seem determined to undercut sincerity with irony at any given opportunity. On the pretty ‘I Wish I Was Joking’ he spends the first verse lamenting the futile search for a perfect love, before turning his ire to $6 coffee and Disney on Ice in the chorus. No sooner has he hit upon a profound observation about the consequences of addiction, he observes ‘nobody calls me the gangster of love at six in the morning…’

MGMT have never taken themselves particularly seriously, which was always part of the appeal. And what ‘Loss of Life’ lacks in raw emotional power, it makes up for in other ways. These songs are brilliantly executed. Familiar at heart, but weird around the edges. Something like ‘I Wish I was Joking’ is so melodic that it takes a while to clock its sardonic darkness. ‘Bubblegum Dog’ and ‘Nothing to Declare’ recall ‘Congratulations’ more experimental elements in the way they unfurl from soft folk ballads into complex, mini-symphonies. The devil is in the detail – the scorched feedback underneath more swooning acoustic strums; the whirling synths that babble weirdly in the background.

If ‘Little Dark Age’ was MGMT’s renewed attempt to find their way back to the Festival Main Stage then ‘Loss of Life’ feels more like the comedown record to play by the campfire afterwards. For the most part it leans into a mellow, laidback vibe that it really has no interest in diverting from. But just occasionally it does. Album highlight ‘Dancing in Babylon’ is a great pop song; it reminds you that ‘Kids’ and ‘Electric Feel’ have hundreds of millions of streams for a legitimate reason. MGMT have always been so much more than psych-pop pranksters – they know how to write bangers when they want to.

7/10

The Last Dinner Party ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ – Review

Much of the chatter about The Last Dinner Party has centred around the speed of the group’s ascent. They performed their first gig a little over two years ago, signed a lucrative deal with an influential management group a couple of months later and were supporting The Rolling Stones by that Summer. It’s easy to be cynical. That sense of preordained  inevitability felt a little fishy, and ‘industry plant’ accusations soon emerged with similar speed and tenacity. But if the “industry” really had the power to “plant” a guitar group at the top of the charts, would they really choose to make them like The Last Dinner Party – who dress in pre-Georgian ball gowns and make music that by any modern metric is so desperately unfashionable?

And what of the music anyway? ‘Prelude to Ecstacy’ is a velvet lined and violin licked piece of baroque pop that sits comfortably in the tradition of Roxy Music, Elton John, John Cale, Kate Bush, Sparks, Anna Calvi etc. In this context, their “unpredictability” is actually quite predictable, to the extent that their quirks generally scan as referential affectations. It’s a textbook sort of ‘eccentric’ that is very British, cloyingly tasteful and also a little worn. 

But the album is consistently melodic and crammed with the sort of hooks that burrow In unnoticed. ‘Nothing Matters’ is the hit and it’s easy to see why. The crude and crunchy chorus has already proven popular on Tik-Tok (‘and you can hold me like he held her, and I will fuck you like nothing matters’). ‘Burn Alive’ and ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’ are equally catchy. The two interludes suggest a slightly more experimental muscle could be flexed more in the future. ‘Gjuah’ is the group’s attempt at an aria and it features Abigail Morris singing her parts in Albanian. The track makes the most of some beautifully haunting harmonies and all sorts of brief but memorable musical flourishes. The title track is equally slight yet ambitious; it’s an orchestral overture that does a fantastic job of setting the theatrical tone.

While a part of me could happily dismiss the band as Florence and The Machine reincarnated for Gen Z, that feels unfair. The Last Dinner Party’s slightly gothy, slightly gaudy glam-rock feels glaringly at odds with the prevailing trends of indie in 2024 – think about the bland restraint of Boy Genius – and for that we should be thankful.

6.5/10