Lyrical Muse

Welsh actor-musician Iwan Rheon is turning his lens back toward music, and this time, it’s sharply focused.

Today, the Game of Thrones star unveiled “Hashtag,” the buzzing new single and animated video from his upcoming second album, I Just Wish I’d Never Gone to Space, slated for release on July 3 via AWAL Recordings.

A decade may have passed since Rheon’s debut album Dinard—a dreamy slice of Welsh psychedelia—but “Hashtag” proves he hasn’t lost his edge or his ear. Produced alongside Chris Hyson (Jordan Rakei), with contributions from Welsh twin musicians Lloyd and Alex Haines, the new record marks both a sonic evolution and a homecoming.

Every note bears Rheon’s fingerprint—from the guitar licks to the lyric sheets.

At the heart of it all is “Hashtag,” a biting satire wrapped in a muscular, melodic alt-rock shell. Gritty guitar riffs blend with a slow, steady rhythm, while Rheon’s rich voice tells the story with a sly, almost end-of-the-world kind of humor.

Inspired by a late-night moment of schadenfreude, the song skewers the hubris of billionaire spacefarers.

“I was watching some tech billionaire’s phallic rocket take off,” Rheon says. “And I remembered—vaguely!— one of Newton’s Laws of Motion! [And how] in a vacuum, the velocity of an object will always stay the same. So if something goes wrong in space, they’ll just keep floating forever. I could imagine this billionaire floating around, [and] all his wealth on the Earth pointless, and he’s wishing he’d never gone to space.”

It’s absurd, it’s timely, and weirdly cathartic.

But there’s nothing throwaway about the music. “Hashtag” crackles with wit and layered meaning, and in Rheon’s hands, space exploration becomes a metaphor for capitalist excess: the moonshot egomania of tech-oligarchs for whom Earth is never quite enough.

And the song becomes a darkly ironic anthem for the disillusioned masses of 2025.

Its punch lands harder thanks to a richly animated video directed by Paulo Russo, with animation by Efa Blosse-Mason. Stylized yet satirical, the visuals echo the absurdity Rheon’s lyrics playfully expose.

But space-age sarcasm is only one orbit of this ambitious album.

Already teased through the swelling tenderness of “Forward Motion,” I Just Wish I’d Never Gone to Space explores themes of fatherhood, heartbreak, ecological dread, and personal growth. It opens and closes with two Welsh-language bookends: “Agor” and “Y Gwenyn”, which dig into a more intimate emotional terrain.

“Writing in Welsh lets me be more vulnerable,” Rheon shares. “It speaks to the version of me that existed before I moved to England. And it just felt right.”

The long gap between albums wasn’t exactly intentional.

Rheon’s acting career has, after all, been more than demanding—from winning an Olivier Award for Spring Awakening, to global acclaim as Ramsay Bolton in Game of Thrones, to more recent work in Men Up and the Roman epic Those About To Die.

But it was heartbreak during the pandemic that quietly, and powerfully, rerouted him back to music.

“That whole period, and the after-effects, helped me get back into music,” he reflects. “I played a lot more, wrote a lot more. Obviously, that resulted in a lot of break-up songs! But when it came time to think about this album, I didn’t really want to do those. So I left them behind and focused on what came next.”

What emerged is an album that feels reflective yet daring, one foot grounded in personal experience, the other kicking against the absurdities of the modern world.

With “Hashtag,” Rheon delivers something sonically punchy, lyrically sharp, and emotionally clever. It’s the perfect reintroduction to an artist who may have taken the scenic route back to music, but who now has something essential to say.

Heard “Hashtag”? Screamed? Cackled? Floated into space? Hit us up on X & Instagram (@lyricalmuseblog). For more music mayhem & musings, orbit over to Lyrical Muse!