Yard Act enlist Katy J Pearson for new single, "When The Laughter Stops"

"When The Laughter Stops" follows the album’s singles, "Petroleum" and "Trench Coat Museum", "Dream Job", and "We Make Hits", with videos for the tracks directed by longtime collaborator James Slater.

One of the first tracks written for the record, Yard Act’s James Smith says, “The sentiment of the lyrics gets to the heart of Where’s My Utopia? almost immediately, and finds the cynicism first spawned from the same circumstance I found myself in during "Dream Job" now giving way to a more genuine sliver of misery. Fortunately - spoiler alert - I've managed to find a way out of this pit, for the time being”

“Whilst the lyrics came quick, musically it went through the wringer. As is often the case when Ryan presents a bass line, harmonically it’s pretty ambiguous and we all hear things differently. I was hearing the song in a pretty bluesy, minor key, whilst Sam [guitarist] heard a very saccharine and sweet major key tune. The song pedalled back and forth, we talked about "Lovefool" by The Cardigans quite a lot if I remember correctly," Smith continues.

"During a recording session in Kettering with Russ Russell at Parlour Studios in December 2022, I was fucking about on a Roland Juno with the arpeggiator whirring away over the end. Ryan flipped the rate so it went half time and all of a sudden the eeriness of the track made sense; it sounded like some John Carpenter doomsday clock countdown or something. Sam reworked the guitars to sound like ‘High Voltage; by Electric Six and we stripped away the funkier percussion and made the rhythm more aggressive, like "Seven Nation Army". Katy came to meet us at Metropolis in London to dub the chorus vocals and it gave the whole track a huge lift I'll never have the voice for. She's fantastic. I asked David Thewlis to recite Macbeth over the end for obvious reasons. The results speak for themselves!"