The group (with a little help from the Palo Santo Entertainment Network) have been teasing their return for a while, but now they've properly re-entered our lives with an impressive, cinematic track and accompanying video.
"I want to take people on a wild and wonderful adventure through my dreams to a world that’s very different from our own," explains frontman Olly Alexander. "I’ve been thinking about this place for a long time, a place to tell stories from; about identity, sexuality, celebrity and performance."
"The video for ‘Sanctify’ centres around an audition against the backdrop of a future metropolis called Palo Santo," Alexander adds of the visual element. "It’s the first part of a bigger jigsaw puzzle and my hope is that it confuses the hell out of people but also excites them in a mysterious and sensual way. We’ve deliberately hidden lots of different meanings and I want people to come up with their own interpretations, I’m asking people to jump down the rabbit hole with me and let their imagination run free."
"The thing I love most about pop music," continues Alexander, "has always been fantasy and escapism so I thought, 'well I guess I should try and be the pop star I want to see in the world and make the most ambitious and freaky and sexy thing possible'. I’m making these videos because I want to let people inside my brain and because I love living in my own fantasy world (always have, always will) - a place where sexuality and gender are blurred and magic is real. We live in a chaotic and accelerating world, we’re looking at depictions of the future to help us make sense of what’s happening right now. This is my vision of a possible future, one that makes us question what it means to be a human."
Years & Years have been working on the follow up to 2015 debut Communion for a fair ol' while, only peeking back out to drop a new single for the Bridget Jones' Baby OST.
