Niall Horan found fame in 2010 with his former band One Direction. He was painted as the boy-next-door, glued to his acoustic guitar and always cracking jokes. When the group took an indefinite hiatus, Horan was determined to launch his own successful solo career. However, unlike former bandmates Zayn Malik and Harry Styles, he struggled to find his individual voice.
Horan's folksy debut album "Flicker" was released in 2017. Although the album delivered hits like "Slow Hands," as a whole, it was relatively overlooked. Three years later, "Heartbreak Weather" serves as a huge stepping stone in his journey of self-discovery as a solo artist.
The concept album explores the complexities of getting your heart broken. Each track is supposed to be from different perspectives of a dissolving relationship, but that may be the source of the problem.
At first, listen, there is not much order to the tracklist. It goes from 80's centric-pop in the title track "Heartbreak Weather," to moody beats. It cheerfully peaks again at "Nice To Meet Ya" then immediately plunges into the piano ballad "Put A Little Love On Me." The tracks seem to both blur together and be radically different. Horan bounces between different genres and perspectives that start to get confused.
"Nice To Meet Ya" is Horan's opportunity to delve into a cool guy persona, and similar to "Small Talk," he dabbles with more sultry lyrics. He transitions between lust and love throughout practically every song, almost as if he is trying too hard to be relatable. This is best shown with the opening verse of "San Francisco."
"Moon shining
Sun rising
You're the one I want to wake up to
Light's fading
I'm changing
Overthinking, I don't know what to do"
Individually, the songs on the album are easy to listen to. They have their unique sounds that are linked by commonalities in their lyrics that relate to nature in some form. As a whole, they sound like a patchwork of music fighting to stand out, but it only creates a divide.
The thing missing from the album is authenticity. The intention is there, but audiences can sense when an artist is not taking the plunge. The different perspectives on the album make it challenging to get a sense of who Horan is as an artist.
However, an exception is the last track, "Still." It is as if the entire album was just about pulling back the layers to reveal Horan at his most vulnerable state in the form of this song. With lyrics like "And it's killing me that we could go to war like this but I'm standing here with you, just trying to be honest," Horan drops the lyrical cliches and delves into something meaningful. He can make an emotional connection that ballads like "Put A Little Love On Me" falls short of.
You can hear the One Direction, and Ed Sheeran influences shining through. Yet, he manages to create a sound individual to him. This is the song where Niall Horan found his voice. Despite the pitfalls in the album, with "Still," we get a glimpse as to who he is as an artist, and where he is bound to go as he becomes a more seasoned solo performer.