Rio Romeo

Rio Romeo’s music is tender, honest and irreverent. The Southern California-based singer-songwriter, born in 1999, belts with punky aplomb while punching chords into an out-of-tune piano. The delivery is perfect for their songs of queer romance and wrenching autobiography drawn from their life as a nonbinary butch lesbian, rendering them all the more poignant and cathartic. Romeo’s gift for musical storytelling lies in their casually well-turned lyrics: “You kiss me slow but without hesitation/You throw me straight into inarticulation” (“Inarticulation”). Ditties such as “Hetero Heaven”, from their 2018 debut, Obnoxious Liberal: The Musical, seem indebted to Stephin Merritt’s perverse camp pop, while the scruffy sweetness of “Twice” (“I can fall in love twice with you”), from the same release, pages Kimya Dawson. The 2021 single “Butch 4 Butch” strikes a wobbly balance between the two poles, giving a new generation a gay indie-pop love song to call theirs in the process.