Simon Love - The One True Prince Of Wales (2026) Hi-Res

Who knew a pop record could sound like it’s stuck on the westbound carriageway of the M4? The One True Prince of Wales (in exile after abdication) by Simon Love is right there, in a lay-by just outside Slough, soaked in mizzle, hazard lights on, Greggs going cold on the passenger seat, and a head full of unruly memories of his Cardiff home.

The driving force behind The Loves, whose knowingly retro, harmony-heavy pop flirted with pastiche, Love has always traded in that hyper-literate, faintly self-lacerating strain of guitar pop. Part raconteur, part bloke at the bar who won’t stop talking. On The One True Prince… there are still jokes (there has to be), but the mask slips a bit. Backed by The Old Romantics—a semi-regular cast including Daniel Chapman on guitar, Ryan Cox (of The School) on bass, Mark West on keys, Ian London on drums and Alex Newton on trumpet, plus contributions from former collaborators like Liz Hunt and Jenna Love—the whole thing feels less like a solo project and more like a collective airing of grievances, in the best possible sense.

The title, typically, is a joke but ends up meaning something more substantial. What started as a quip at a Swansea gig about being introduced as the “one true Prince of Wales” gradually gathers weight once you factor in bereavement, real life stuff and that persistent middle-age sense of being slightly out of place wherever you are. Love’s position on all this —Cardiff-born, London-based, and increasingly ambivalent about both— provides the album’s spark. Not quite in exile then, not quite home. Just… stuck.

An obvious comparison is Kip Berman, particularly in the way both artists smuggle heavier emotional material inside ostensibly bright, melodic frameworks. But where Berman’s nostalgia often drifts into soft-focus romanticism, Love’s version is more grainy and less forgiving. His Wales is specific: the streets, family routine, half-remembered days out, while London barely registers as anything more than a blob.

Musically, he’s still operating within a familiar palette. Elvis Costello’s bite, Randy Newman’s wryness, a touch of Kinks‘ observation—but there’s less sense of pastiche this time. Things shifts easily from straight-up guitar pop to country-tinged melancholy and occasional Super Furry psychedelic foray. The band gives the record its loosey-goosey kitsch that suits the material with arrangements that feel pulled together down the rehearsal room rather than arranged.

Where the record properly lands though is in the writing. “(Feels Funny) But I’m Getting Used To It” is the clearest example: a song that, unusually for Love, wears its heart on its sleeve without immediately rolling it up. The origin—an offhand email about his father’s death, followed by a quick retreat to the office toilets to hum ideas into a phone—tells you most of what you need to know about his slightly awkward but authentic process on this album. He reflects on the “hide and seek” nature of grief: “Sometimes you’ll be alright and then one thing will remind you of them or remind you that they’re not around anymore and you’ll be back to square one.” Elsewhere though, his instinct to be sincere with one hand while the other is doing bunny ears behind your head is still there. “Us Against The World” starts as a parental rallying cry before quietly revealing its own absurdity, while “Green Man Blues” takes aim at festival culture with the kind of irritation that suggests he’d quite like to be on the bill please, while simultaneously resenting the entire premise. It’s petty in a very human way, and crucially, he knows it.

Even the more overtly comic material carries a faint aftertaste. “Everything is S4C” plays like a chant-along list of grievances, but underneath the joke is something more conflicted about identity—how much of it is inherited, how much chosen, and how much just gets on your bloody nerves. These basic observations remain some of his strongest tools. “Happy Birthday to Me (and Rita Lee)” turns the indignity of having a New Year’s Eve birthday into something quietly existential, while “Come Out 2nite” fixates on the dying freedoms of pre-smartphone life, back when you could leave a relationship behind without it reappearing months later as a text from an ex. Although these aren’t deeper musings on the meaning of life, they roll up into something more telling: a catalogue of minor gripes that mirror the larger ones.

The closing version of “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau” could easily have fallen apart under its own concept—full band, sung in Welsh, edging towards terrace chant—but instead it lands as a slightly overblown, unexpectedly affecting close. What started as a joke slowly turns into something more personal, about where he fits and what he’s carrying with him. If there’s a shift, it’s in how little distance Love now keeps between himself and his material. The sharp tongued, self-aware persona is still intact but he lets us in a little more. The jokes no longer deflect everything and the gaps they leave make this album all the better for it.