The sky is quite grey, almost like anthracite. The ideal fertiliser to make this teeming post-punk revival scene, which has been shaking the indie planet since the beginning of the 2010s, grow a little more. But how do you get your head out of an already dense melee in which Girl Band, Fontaines DC, Shame, Dry Cleaning and a thousand other bands armed with square guitars and vocalists closer to scansion than to song are jostling each other? To achieve this, Yard Act takes the genre's markers and predictable influences (The Fall, Gang of Four, Wire, early Talking Heads) down often unexpected paths. Better still, they don't limit themselves to being an electric ball of nerves or an old spit in the face of a (post-Brexit) society gone wrong. No, no, Yard Act uses their rage to find different forms of expression. The Overload, the brilliant first album of this Leeds-based quartet, closes with the almost peaceful tempo of 100% Endurance. On the mic, James Smith is a worthy heir to the dalaïlama of post-punk, the late Mark E. Smith of The Fall, with a hint of groove to boot. Along with guitarist Sam Shipstone, bassist Ryan Needham and drummer Jay Russell, Smith wraps his cynicism and bile in bright clothes. A form of proletarian dandyism on amphetamines that sometimes resembles Sleaford Mods (a lot), Ian Durry and his Blockheads or even Pulp! Never caricatured but still tainted with a dash of dark realism, James Smith's vignettes are sometimes funny and musically eclectic. Enough to leave a mark and make The Overload a shock album of 2022. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz