Yard Act to Release Third Album Recorded Together as a Live Band

Leeds band Yard Act will release their third studio album, ‘You’re Gonna Need A Little Music’, on July 17 via Island Records. The record is the first they have ever made together in the same room, as a full live unit. Earlier work was constructed under very different conditions. Their debut, ‘The Overload’, was written before the quartet had fully solidified. Its follow-up, ‘Where’s My Utopia?’, was assembled in fragments on tour buses and in hotel rooms.

This time, Yard Act locked into an open stretch of five months. The band split recording sessions between their hometown and Los Angeles, working with producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen, whose credits include Nine Inch Nails, Beck, and St Vincent. “It felt like freedom,” vocalist James Smith said of the process.

The decision to record as a live band brings a new physical logic to Yard Act’s sound, after two albums defined by remote assembly or solo composition. The long, uninterrupted window allowed the group to develop material without external pressure, a sharp departure from the fractured timeline of the previous record. Meldal-Johnsen’s presence as the first outside producer they have brought in for a full LP adds another dimension, connecting the Leeds scene-rooted band to a broader alt-rock lineage.