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Yard Act ’s frontman and lyricist James Smith is Zooming in from the back of an automobile. The car is not moving, but Yard Act surely is. The night before, the band played Milan, Italy, and is about to head to Zurich, Switzerland, on the European leg of a tour that has taken the quartet — Smith, Ryan Needham, Sam Shipstone and Jay Russell — to Barcelona, Spain; and Lyon, France; among other cities.

On May 30, they land in the States, where they’ll play the first segment of a 20-date North American jaunt. (They return in October for the second.) See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news It’s an ambitious itinerary for a band that didn’t start playing live until after the pandemic, but Yard Act have accomplished a lot quickly “with no intention to,” Smith says dryly.



The band released its first album, The Overload , in early 2022, which was nominated for the United Kingdom’s prestigious Mercury Prize later that year and caught the ear of Elton John , who they convinced to record an alternate version of their single “100% Endurance” with them. Yard Act was initially labeled as post-punk, but as their second album Where’s My Utopia ? shows, they are much more original and harder to categorize because of the musical breadth of their songs and Smith’s lyrics, which convey a fascinating combination of wit, self-awareness, empathy and guilt. There are times when Yard Act sounds like Guy Ritchie produced a musical mindfulness chan.

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