Album Review: Years & Years - Communion

British electronic dance trio Years & Years release music that feels like it’s been around forever.

This quality doesn’t have to be limited to simply a positive or a negative sentiment; some of the best music borrows ideas from the past that sounds like the future. However, there needs to be a balance in this equation, and the debut album from the British buzz band overbalances to the point of mediocrity, evening the scales to such an extent that it sounds too much like everything else and not enough like itself.

While the band uses electronic instruments, they play them so safely it’s hard to differentiate between many of the tracks on their debut album, Communion. As an unfortunate result, they sound like the latest offering from whichever television star has recently turned their celebrity towards a musical career. Everything is airbrushed into unrecognisable radio sheen, and it’s hard not to be blinded by its sheer sameness.

There’s a broody opening track and a few quieter songs later in the album, but the band still fails to generate any real atmosphere, or establish a coherent set of themes beyond obvious platitudes. It’s pop music in the strictest sense; communion, but only in the broadest way possible. ‘I want to be bigger than life’ lead singer Olly Alexander sings on Eyes Shut. He has a pleasant voice that’s graced other dance music producers’ hits, but Years & Years will have to do much more if they want to be the kind of band this record implies they are.