Three quarters of a decade removed from the last One Direction album and three albums into a subsequent solo career, Niall Horan has, at long last, settled into himself. After 2017 debut Flicker kick-started his solo artistry with some surefire radio hits (“This Town,” “Slow Hands”) and 2020’s Heartbreak Weather featured a handful of sonic chances (“Nice To Meet Ya,” “Put a Little Love on Me”), The Show, Horan’s best album to date, tells us what type of long-term career he wants to fashion by splitting the difference and achieving consistency.
At 10 songs and 30 minutes, The Show is briskly paced yet emotionally resonant: songs about love and devotion arrive at their main points without frills, and the musical highs never last too long to wear out their welcome. Longtime 1D studio whizzes John Ryan and Julian Bunetta — alongside star songwriters like Amy Allen, Tobias Jesso Jr. and Shane McAnally — create a rich, agreeable pop foundation that stretches out to include piano (Horan’s main songwriting tool on this go-around), horns and strings, without losing its center.
And Horan sounds comfortable in the center — he deploys charm as always and knows his way around an oversized chorus, but the lyrical details ring truer compared to his previous work, and the vocal takes contain an ease that better draws in the listener. Whether he’s reflecting on life difficulties during the title track, fearing the end of a relationship on “If You Leave Me” or serving as the port in a storm on “Meltdown,” Horan invests the time in getting the little things right, and that care makes The Show easier to embrace.
At 29 years old, Horan is surely thinking about the progression of his solo career as he stares down his thirties; The Show represents a step towards a fruitful future by honing his identity as a modern singer-songwriter. This third album may very well be an inflection point in Horan’s career — the start of an artist, who’s been in our lives for a long time, pulling closer and providing a better glimpse of who he is.
While all of Horan’s new album is worth listening to, we already have some early favorites. Check out our preliminary track rankings for The Show:
