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Olly Alexander announces new Years & Years album ‘Night Call’

The singer took Years and Years on as a solo project after splitting with the rest of the band in March.

By Alastair James

Words: Alastair James; pictures: Instagram/@ollyears

Olly Alexander has confirmed the release date for Years & Years’ third studio album Night Call.

The singer and star of It’s A Sin released his first single as a ‘solo’ artist, ‘Starstruck’, back in April.

Posting on Instagram on Tuesday (28 September) Olly, 31, shared the album artwork illustrating him in full mermaid realness, and confirmed that the record will be released on 7 January 2022.

“I’m so happy”

Captioning the post Olly said: “I’m so happy this moment has finally come! Night Call has been my escape for the past couple of years, I put all my frustration, loneliness, hope, horniness, grief, and optimism into making a really fun record I could dance to, I’m so excited to put this out and share it with you all.”

He added that people would be able to pre-order the album, listen to CRAVE (which we’re assuming is a new single), and watch the video, from five o’clock BST on Tuesday.

 
 
 
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Years & Years (@yearsandyears)

A snapshot of the video is viewable on YouTube ahead of the video’s release. In it, Olly is surrounded by mythical-looking creatures, while he wears some kind of wreath and is painted in blue. The singer also posted a brief teaser for the video on his Instagram on Monday (27 September) saying: “i hope to give you all that you’ve been craving”

 
 
 
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A post shared by Years & Years (@yearsandyears)

In the album artwork, Olly is painted as a mermaid perched on a rock in the middle of a moonlit seascape. Perhaps he’s taken some inspiration from the sirens of legend. We’ve certainly been lured in and will be tuning in, later on, to hear more from the solo singer.

In March, Years and Years announced that it would continue as a solo project for Olly Alexander, but that the three band members – Olly Alexander, Mikey Goldsworthy, and Emre Türkmen – were still “good friends”. 

The trio formed in 2010 scoring hits such as ‘Shine’ and ‘King’. Addressing the split in an interview with Capital FM in April, Olly explained that the boys had “grown apart musically”.

He continued: “We kind of stopped making music together, and when we announced that I was going to be Years & Years, it had kind of been a long time coming.”

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