Review: Years & Years- Communion

Years & Years are a British synthpop/electronica group from London. They formed in 2010 after Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Turkmen met online, Olly Alexander (vocals) then joined at a later date. 

The band have gained critical acclaim in recent times and won the BBC Radio 1 sound of 2015 poll. They have been championed by Radio 1 to a big extent with Zane Lowe making single 'King' the Hottest Record of the day. 

I think this album starts particularly poorly with a wishy washy intro and two substandard tracks in 'Real' and 'Shine'. It can be argued that this sets the tone for the album as a whole which seems to lack direction and focus.  

The two lead singles from this album are 'King' and 'Desire'. 'King' has enjoyed a lot more play time, however out of the two I believe that 'Desire' is the better track with it's tropical inspired beat that makes you want to dance. Having said that, 'King' isn't a bad track, it's just not as good as 125 million listens on Spotify says it is.

In my opinion the best track of the album is 'Take Shelter' which has an almost tribal beat to it that you can't help but enjoy. This style carries over to the next track on the album which is 'Worship', this track has a good beat and hook that you find yourself singing along to. This sound is perhaps the band at their best compared to other tracks which don't make as much of an impact on me as a listener.

In a lot of places this album tends to just feel like a collection of singles that have been strung together with no real cohesion. The general sound also isn't very groundbreaking and quite generic in parts. This is particularly evident in tracks like 'Eyes Shut', 'Without' and 'Memo' which are slower than the others and seem to be trying very hard to be emotional. This is definitely not what the band do best. This album is nice to listen to in parts but it definitely isn't the full package.   

Highs
Take Shelter
Worship

Lows
Eyes Shut
Without

Rating: 6.4/10