Since their breakthrough in 2015, Years & Years have specialised in hearts-on-sleeve, hooks-on-repeat tunes saturated in devotional imagery. From their spry debut album Communion to thrillingly turbulent songs such as Preacher and Hallelujah, singer Olly Alexander and multi-instrumentalists Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen have created their own persuasive corpus of sleek, nightclub-ready synthpop apocrypha. (The fact that a similarly forceful but emotionally nuanced trio bagged the name Chvrches sometimes seems like a goddamn shame.)
It helps that 28-year-old Alexander is the most likable of saviours, an open and thoughtful LGBTQ+ advocate who is witty in interview, heartfelt in performance and empathetic in both. On the opening night of a UK arena tour celebrating their second album Palo Santo, he and his team deliver a near constant barrage of artfully chiselled hits, confidently rattled out to an enthusiastic all-ages crowd like DayGlo darts from a Nerf gun.
Alexander resembles a particularly glam Hell’s Angel in a long-sleeved nude tee festooned with lurid fake tattoos, accessorised with a black waistcoat and glittering diamante choker. He revs up his swooping voice over propulsive bleeps and burps that sound thrillingly modern, even if the underlying themes of fleeting romance and crushing heartbreak on the dancefloor are timeless. Against a nocturnal backdrop of neon-drenched skylines and sigils, Alexander bares his soul on bangers (the sinuous Sanctify) and ballads (the weepy Eyes Shut), while shimmying with four tireless dancers.
In this 80-minute cavalcade, the centrepiece is the dramatic title track from Palo Santo. On record, it sounds like a futuristic Bond theme audition; live, it is transformed into pure spectacle, as Alexander – now in a seemingly endless ballgown – ascends to be silhouetted against a gigantic moon. It is a dazzling moment of pop theatre worthy of Pet Shop Boys in their pomp. In another era, Alexander’s personality alone would have been enough to keep Years & Years in the public eye. On this form, they feel like the real deal, a properly effervescent band with uplift to spare.
• At Apollo, Manchester on 29 November, and Arena, Birmingham on 30 November, then touring until 5 December.
