Since his debut, Rex Orange County has built a collection of upbeat songs accompanied by challenging lyrics that hold an awkward juxtaposition which is repeatedly reflected in his interpretation of himself. On ‘Pony’, he brings together his classic undertones of personal venting whilst establishing newfound self-acceptance.
The album opens with 10/10 which leads with a victorious synth under the story of overcoming bad time. The whole song practically drips with enthusiasm for the future. Rex instantly slows the pace when he moves to Always which is like a ballad in tempo. This very minimalistic song throws back to his older music where he questions why he feels how he does, yet here it seems as if he is okay if no one else cares.
The middle section of the album revolves around problems of the modern young person with Laser Lights describing awkward social situations he’d rather not be in but finds himself in regardless, followed by Face To Face where a sense of his internal conflict on continuing his relationship as the two of them grow comes into play. Stressed Out builds from very natural to a very inorganically sounding ending, layering a load of synthetic voices – eluding to the number of fake people he has in his life, the closing lyrics being “oh you want to check on me now?”
Here the album takes back its narrative of a vindication from his previous life, Never Had The Balls sings about being “lost” but “coming back now” within the first few lines — looking back on a break-up and realising that the end of it was a great thing. The joy of this song coming out of the self-depreciative lyrics is so typical of Rex and is something he does so well.
Now Alexander takes some time to self-analyse in Pluto Projector. He uses his long term girlfriend, Thea, to compare himself against. The song feels like a conversation between the two. The song gets a soulful sound from the moment he accepts that he probably won’t and maybe isn’t even supposed to understand himself fully – as if it is genuinely a spiritual moment of genius for him. The outro to the song builds to a deep layered voice asking – probably Thea – to stay in his life forever, this voice has been used in previous albums to depict his inner-demons, this shows how it is every part of him he has now realised how much she means to him.
Every Way is almost definitely, directed at and only for Thea. Alexander once again opens up about how she has helped him and that he is incredibly thankful for her. This song makes perfect sense to follow Pluto Projector because of how he hs discovered his true feelings for himself and now it is all about her. With just his voice and a piano, it’s a model love ballad, there is no more and no less to it, but there does not need to be.
Next up is It Gets Better which is a much more mainstream tune than the rest of the album at first, a jumpier beat under sharp synth scales. He is still singing about and to his girlfriend, telling their story of getting together. Towards the end of the song reclaims his more typical tone with vocals over strings and talks about wanting his life to feel better soon even though he says Thea has already changed his world for the better.
There is a huge turn around for the album in It’s Not The Same Anymore. He sings, as the title suggests, that things aren’t how they were, and he plays a sorrowful guitar riff throughout. He talks a lot about losing interest in everything and getting worse, then admitting that he needs to get and how before he was bottling or ignoring his problems. Suddenly the song turns around to be a retrospective on his life. In the last chorus, he says it’s not the same, its better, closing off the album with a symphony of instruments that ooze happiness and good feelings.
Score: 7/10
Words: Isaac Till