Leeds UK quartet Yard Act's new album, You're Gonna Need A Little Music, is out July 17 via Republic Records. The lead single is “Redeemer.” You’re Gonna Need A Little Music follows the band’s UK Top 5 charting Where’s My Utopia? (2024) and their Mercury Prize nominated debut, The Overload (2022).
It was recorded between Leeds and Los Angeles with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Nine Inch Nails, Beck, St. Vincent) and marks the first time that the quartet—frontman and vocalist James Smith, bassist Ryan Needham, guitarist Sam Shjipstone, and drummer Jay Russell—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. 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.”
Intentionally, in some ways, the album is a step away from Smith’s venerated vignettes and character studies; a move towards something more “impressionistic” and up for interpretation.
“I think the album is about multiple realities and how individualism has led us, in the modern world, to question if there even is a shared reality anymore because everyone just believes what they want now,” Smith suggests.
Last month, Yard Act announced a summer North American tour including stops throughout the West Coast, East Coast and Canada. This marks the band’s first North American run since 2024. Tickets are now on sale and available here. Yard Act will also make several festival appearances across Europe in June and embark on an extensive UK and EU tour in the fall.
Pre-Order You’re Gonna Need A Little Music
Track list:
Pre-Order You’re Gonna Need A Little Music
Track list:
1. Empty Pledges
2. New Beginnings
3. Tall Tales
4. Fiction
5. You're Gonna Need A Little Music
6. Cherophobe Rock
7. Thrill Of The Chase
8. Janey Said
9. Redeemer
10. Talky Talky People
11. Over The Barrel
No. American Tour Dates:
2. New Beginnings
3. Tall Tales
4. Fiction
5. You're Gonna Need A Little Music
6. Cherophobe Rock
7. Thrill Of The Chase
8. Janey Said
9. Redeemer
10. Talky Talky People
11. Over The Barrel
No. American Tour Dates:
Wed. Aug. 5 – San Diego, CA @ Belly Up Tavern
Thu. Aug. 6 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
Sat. Aug. 8 – San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands
Sun. Aug. 9 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
Mon. Aug. 10 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre
Tue. Aug. 11 – Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl
Thu. Aug. 13 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
Fri. Aug. 14 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Sat. Aug. 15 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
Sun. Aug. 16 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
