Years & Years

★★ Night Call POLYDOR. CD/DL/LP

First album without co-founders Emre Türkmen and Mikey Goldsworthy.

Olly Alexander, the It’s A Sin star, Celebrity Gogglebox favourite and rumoured new Dr Who, is essentially now a sole trader under the Years & Years banner. The resulting long-player is a watertight collection of pop bangers tailor-made for drivetime radio. Despite lyrics seemingly written on the back of a cigarette packet between filming commitments, this is an album of ambitious king-making. But in its Thatcher-ite commitment to pop perfection, it turns the art of the album into a sausage factory of hit-making. Alexander’s Years & Years sounds like a ragbag of contemporary influences (Clean Bandit, Dua Lipa, The Weeknd) rather than possessing a distinct sound of its own – the nation may be hard pressed to identify its pop sheen over the mechanical hum when it plays in Tesco Metros across the land. Ironically, Night Call could have done with some group frisson to create more jagged musical edges.