Years & Years have confirmed details of their highly anticipated second album Palo Santo, to be released on July 6th via Polydor Records. The band’s first official single from Palo Santo will be revealed very soon. In the meantime, today’s album announcement comes with the first official trailer for the band’s short film (of the same name), featuring Years & Years front-man Olly Alexander, as well as the legendary Academy Award-winning actress Dame Judi Dench.
The British trio recently made a welcome and surprise return with their critically acclaimed track Sanctify. The official video became the #1 most trending video on YouTube upon release, surpassing 6 million views and seeing the band grace the likes of ‘Sounds Like Friday Night’ to the cover of The Guardian. ‘Sanctify’ proved to be the first taste of forthcoming second album ‘Palo Santo’, which reached number 1 in the UK upon release, sold 1.5 million copies, and was nominated for 5 BRIT Awards.
A band intuitively connected to great, homespun British pop classicism, Palo Santo announces Years & Years’ ascension to the world stage. At the core is Olly Alexander, a once-in-a-generation front-man who understands more than most his responsibility as a pop star. His personal leap forward in scope and ambition is reflected in the album’s colorful mix of collaborators, which range from Kid Harpoon, Greg Kurstin, Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter to Steve Mac, Jessie Shatkin and Sarah Hudson. On ‘Palo Santo’, Years & Years’ impact on pop feels truly tribal, one in which the minority is always the majority, and everyone is welcome.
Having teased fans for months, the bold concept behind Years & Years’ second album is further explored in the upcoming short film directed by Fred Rowson and starring Olly Alexander, Dame Judi Dench and cult Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm amongst others. The record takes its name from a sacred wood but, in the densely woven fictional backstory of the music video and short film, Palo Santo has also become a city on a distant planet, on which human beings are a rare commodity, worshipped and idolized by an android society. Olly, along with the final humans, is recruited to perform in a series of bizarre erotic cabarets, for an artificial master known only as The Showman.
Part full-blooded, escapist fantasia and part social comment, for Years & Years this is about outlier pop as futurism once more, offering solutions when the wider world is transforming beyond recognition. With Olly drawing as much inspiration from cult sci-fi as the multi-sensory pop of Prince, Bowie or Gaga, in ‘Palo Santo’ Years & Years have created the perfect space in which to tell their most intimate, personal stories; on identity, sexuality, performance, and ultimately, what it means to be human.
“Palo Santo” (standard edition track-list).
1. Sanctify
2. Hallelujah
3. All For You
4. Karma
5. Hypnotised
6. Rendezvous
7. If You’re Over Me
8. Preacher
9. Lucky Escape
10. Palo Santo
Here (Interlude)