When Years & Years won the BBC Sound of 2015 award in January it felt like a good day for those of us left cold by the rise of Ed Sheeran and his ilk. Here was a synth-pop trio who dealt in rousing choruses and perky beats — not an acoustic guitar or wrist-slitting ballad in sight. This show, one of the young Manchester band’s biggest to date, had a febrile energy and a crowd to match.
Yet in the way that they prize politeness over posturing, Years & Years cleave rather more closely to Sheeran’s formula. Take their extraordinarily nice frontman, Olly Alexander. He is better known as an actor, having played Herbert Pocket in the BBC’s Great Expectations, Peter Pan on the West End stage and the fey alter ego of Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch in Murdoch’s film God Help the Girl. Good turns all but none very dangerous, and Alexander in person is equally unthreatening.
That made little difference on their best, most urgent songs: on Real, Alexander’s soulful falsetto rode on raw, propulsive rhythms while a new track, Shine, was equal parts Rihanna and Hot Chip. Desire, though, suffered slightly from pedestrian melodies, while the between-songs chat could have done with some bite. Introducing Memo, a warbling electronic torch song, Alexander said: “This is a bit slower so you can just chill out and hug each other if you like.” The Sex Pistols at the Free Trade Hall it was not.
That’s not to say that bolshiness is everything. I certainly don’t hanker after the days when one emerged from a gig covered in spittle. Given a dash more attitude, though, and a few more memorable hooks, Years & Years could be playing arenas by this time next year.