Rex Orange County - Pony

The Guardian 60

(Sony Music)
The 21-year-old singer-songwriter lays out his struggles with commitment and fake friends over hip-hop inflected nerdy piano pop

One of the most accurate neologisms of recent times is softboi: a certain kind of earnestly poetic, puppyish but slightly damaged young man you’d meet on swipe-based dating apps. They have found their patron saint in Rex Orange County, 21-year-old English singer-songwriter Alexander O’Connor.

The Guardian 60

(Sony)

In 2017 Rex Orange County released Apricot Princess, a record full of breezy, sugary candour; that same year, the young Surrey artist, real name Alex O’Connor, was a guest on rap maverick Tyler, the Creator’s Flower Boy. Suddenly, O’Connor was a need-to-know name, coming second in the BBC’s Sound of 2018 poll.

Pony is his first full-length release and finds him considering new circumstances and weighty expectations (“everything makes me want to quit while I’m ahead,” he admits on Face to Face). At points, introspection threatens to eclipse the joy he feels in his romantic relationship, which occasionally makes the record feel disjointed. When he’s aiming for optimism, it can feel flat or almost gratingly saccharine, as per opener 10/10. Sonically, O’Connor is unchanged – jaunty piano, sentimental pop, powerful vocals – albeit with more ambitious use of soaring instrumentation: bops like It Gets Better and Never Had the Balls, as well as the beautiful Pluto Projector, could all be on a romcom soundtrack.

Pitchfork 50

The 21-year-old songwriter’s latest album is irritating enough to activate the mildest allergy to sincerity.