Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Cheryl Waters, host of The Midday Show on KEXP, is "The Overload" by Yard Act, from the 2022 album The Overload on Zen F.C.
This might be the debut album from Leeds band Yard Act, but its members have been kicking around the scene for a while — frontman James Smith in Post War Glamour Girls, and bassist Ryan Needham as a member of Menace Beach. They're hardly the latest post-punk band to come out of the UK, but Smith brings a sarcastic sense of humor and gift for lyrics that sets them ahead of the pack.
"‘The Overload’ serves as an overture to the album," he says of today's Song of the Day to NME. "It’s written from the perspective of someone sitting in a pub overhearing snippets of all these different conversations from different characters and acting as a vessel, a medium even, for their own thoughts and opinions. That cut and paste approach means it’s hard to decipher where one person’s musings end and another’s statement begins, and that feels like a fairer representation of why human existence is at the point it is right now. Society doesn’t prevail because of the absolute, it struggles on in spite of it. It’s our ability to compromise which helps us to coexist."
