It takes exactly 31 seconds from the start of his third album for Alex O’Connor to inform listeners that he’s feeling both stressed and “so depressed”. Those familiar with O’Connor’s oeuvre as Rex Orange County might suggest that’s very much par for the course. Feeling stressed and depressed is O’Connor’s thing. He’s stressed and depressed about girls, about his friendships, about his burgeoning musical career and, on a song called 7am, about forgetting to shut the blinds before he went to bed. He even has a weird habit of sounding upset when he’s ostensibly hymning a blossoming new romance, striking an oddly pleading tone: “I can’t believe you’ve come and saved me.”
