Yard Act recently shared the second single from their forthcoming third album, ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’, released on 17th July via Island Records. This being ‘New Beginnings’, and describing the track, the band’s vocalist James Smith explains:
“‘New Beginnings’ is a bit of light to counteract the dark we led with [Redeemer]. Sometimes we’ve already shed our old skin without even realising it’s happening. Celebrate the new, because you can’t go back.”
To coincide with the album’s release, the band will head out on a new six date UK in-store+ out-store tour, kicking off on 15th July at La Belle Angele in Edinburgh in association with Assai Records, before heading to Baltic in Liverpool (Jacaranda Records), Rough Trade East, Rough Trade Nottingham, Rough Trade Bristol, before winding up at Chalk in Brighton (Resident Records). Fans pre-ordering the new record online from those stores will be offered tickets to the associated show in those cities. Full dates/listings below.
‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ was recorded between the band’s hometown of Leeds and in Los Angeles with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Nine Inch Nails, Beck, St Vincent).
Simultaneously the most dynamic, collaborative, energised work they’ve laid to tape, but also containing some of the darkest, most cynical and truly questioning moments they’ve concocted too, ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ picks up their tale and examines the findings more unsparingly than ever.
Weirdly, for a band so associated with incendiary live shows and constant touring, their third LP marks the first time that the quartet have ever made an album together, as a live band in the same room. “The first two records were both laptop records essentially,” says Smith. ‘The Overload’ was written alongside Needham before the band had fully formed; its follow-up, ‘Where’s My Utopia?’, was carved out in snatches of time on tour buses and hotel rooms, amongst a relentless schedule of “slinging [all our gear] in the rehearsal space, going back home, and then a week later piling it back into a van again.”
For the first time in a long time, Yard Act were able to settle into an “uninterrupted five month period” of creativity, crafting “40 or 50 songs” and allowing themselves to follow their ideas with no external pressure. “It felt like freedom,” says Smith. “It felt like everything I’d wanted from being in a band”
The band will spend much of this year out on the road, kicking off with European dates in June before heading to North America throughout August, and back to Europe in October.
‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ follows the band’s UK Top 5 charting ‘Where’s My Utopia?’ in 2024, and their Mercury Prize nominated 2022 debut, ‘The Overload’.
Pre-order ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’ HERE and fans wishing to attend the Brighton show at Chalk on 24th July can find the tickets and album deal HERE.
Yard Act Live:
16th July – La Belle Angele, Edinburgh (in association with Assai Records)
17th July – Baltic, Liverpool (in association with Jacaranda Records)
19th July – Rough Trade East, London
21st July – Rough Trade, Nottingham
22nd July – Rough Trade, Bristol
24th July – Chalk, Brighton (in association with Resident Records)
Yard Act have also announced a slew of new UK headline dates that are to take place throughout November:
Yard Act tour:
6th November – O2 Academy, Leeds
7th November – O2 Academy, Leeds
10th November – NX, Newcastle
11th November – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
12th November – Octagon Centre, Sheffield
13th November – O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester
15th November – Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
16th November – O2 Academy, Leicester
17th November – Rock City, Nottingham
18th November – Junction 1, Cambridge
20th November – O2 Academy, Oxford
21st November – Bristol Beacon, Bristol
23rd November – Plymouth Arena, Plymouth
24th November – O2 Guildhall, Southampton
26th November – O2 Academy Brixton, London
