After just under three years, Niall Horan’s most extended break between album cycles, the Irish singer-songwriter finally returns to the music scene with “Heaven”, the lead single off his upcoming third album, The Show set to release June 9th!
Niall Horan made his solo debut in 2016 with the ever-so-lovely “This Town”, a four-minute, acoustic tune about love found and lost as he moved out of Ireland to become the musician we know today. This served as the first taste of his debut album, Flicker which holds firm in its Irish folk and American country influences.
In 2020, Horan released his sophomore album Heartbreak Weather, which despite being startlingly halted by the pandemic, was praised by critics and fans alike for his pivot in genre; exploring rock and pop influences, comparisons drawn between Don Henley of legendary band The Eagles. Although the two albums are starkly different, they both portray his stunning songwriting, strengthening and widening vocal range, and instrumental gifts; Horan is a self-taught guitarist, bassist, pianist, and drummer!
Now, he’s made his comeback with the long-awaited “Heaven”, an addictive pop track that sounds straight out of the 70s— a mix between Electric Light Orchestra and The Temptations— about falling headfirst into love and letting go of the pressures found in the outside world. Niall’s vocals are stacked and layered to perfection as he sings of how his feelings are “beyond infatuation /how I obsessively adore you.” Fans were automatically taken by the absolute devotion poured through his lyrics, something rarely seen from male artists in today’s musical scope, but it’s nothing new. Niall regularly writes about women from a place of care and friendship to unwavering worship. See “Cross Your Mind”, a fan-favorite from Heartbreak Weather:
“You keep talkin’, I’ll just listen/Daydreamin’ ’bout where your lips been/Pull my heart right out my chest, drive a train through/Still get up and forgive you”
and “Since We’re Alone” from Flicker:
“All your thoughts running through your head/The things you think better left unsaid/Just wanna know where you came from/Why would you wanna play someone else?/I love you best when you’re just yourself/Yeah, you’re everything I want”
From “Heaven” alone this theme is already prevalent in his upcoming album “The Show” which Horan describes as “a body of work born of his longtime mission of bringing solace and connection to his globe-spanning community of passionately devoted fans.”
❝ He’s one of the hardest working people in the music industry, I’ve ever met. Someone who has grafted to learn his craft and never wasted a day or an opportunity. He has a natural curiosity for life and the people he meets. And even though his life has changed beyond all recognition in the last 10 years, he’s never lost that commonality of empathy he’s famous for. ❞
Dermont O’Leary
Niall Horan excels as a musical artist due to his talent and hard work. He’s a self-taught musician from the tender age of eleven, (who’s been compared to the likes of Elton John and David Bowie by The Things Magazine) which made him the only member of One Direction who could play an instrument until he was enlisted to teach them how to play the guitar. He’s a songwriter first and foremost, with 9 BMI songwriting awards under his belt, and because of this, his authenticity is the basis of his artistry. Niall writes unashamedly, he commits himself fully to whatever is in his life, whether that’s relationships or his craft and it’s evident in his songwriting which displays a passion-filled, heart wrenching, and intoxicating quality that can’t be faked or replicated.
He crashes through a limit that’s rarely breached today by male artists when it comes to opening your heart and pushing your emotions to the extreme through clever and metaphorical lyricism. Take another fan-favorite “New Angel” which encompasses the reader in modern pop production, that the hard-hitting verses alluding to self-harm and “something in particular that [Niall] won’t mention” but I’m sure you can figure it out, slip right by, only to be caught on an instinctive second listen.
“I’ll give you what’s left to me/’Cause you feel so heavenly/I don’t know what’s best for me/But maybe it’s time/I need a new angel/A touch of someone else to save me from myself”
❝ I’ve been playing all the instruments on these records I’m making and I’ve actually never had a music lesson. I just kind of watched things off YouTube, pause the video and see where their hands were and go from there. Luckily enough I had rhythm. I just go up and find notes I like the sound of and try to create some sort of a chord. I just always liked the improvisation and challenge of it.❞
Niall Horan
The Show promises nothing less than artistry but a whole lot more as she completely shifted his team of producers and songwriters. The Show has been worked on by Grammy award-winning producer Joel Little, who most notably writes and produces for Lorde, Amy Allen who was just Grammy nominated for Songwriter of the Year, Tobias Jesso Jr., who also nominated in that category and won! Exploring a deeper sense of his musical identity with an unreleased snippet performed on Instagram featuring a haunting vocals crooning
“Baby, you could start a cult/You see, anywhere you go I’ll be/‘Cus you were so much more than beautiful to me/Oh I’ll follow you til there’s no tomorrow”
An enthralling contrast to the heartwarming “Heaven” streaming now.