

Niall Horan was once blessed with the gift of perfect timing. In the tradition of boy bands before them, One Direction ran with precision, releasing one No. 1 record per year and, like clockwork, following that up with one sold-out stadium world tour. After five years, the first crack in their inevitable fracturing arrived when Zayn Malik left the band on March 25, 2015. But even their demise was meticulously scheduled: 1D went on hiatus exactly a year later. Now a soloist, Horan has had the reverse fortune—his timing is almost comically bad. Horan’s debut album, 2017’s folksy Flicker, teased a Fleetwood Mac influence and arrived a few months after Harry Styles’ self-titled debut solo album, also Fleetwood-inspired, did it better. Again this year, Horan’s sophomore album, Heartbreak Weather, a pop record full of breakup ballads, was released on Friday the 13th during a global health crisis, making it difficult to promote. He managed an appearance on The Late Late Show and a rare good session of Carpool Karaoke. But while his fans have remained loyal, the general public largely ignored his release.
That’s a shame because of how much Heartbreak Weather, an unpretentious project, builds on the solo identity Horan introduced to the world on Flicker. Much like 1D albums, which sought to include the biggest bangers in the shortest space, Horan has divorced himself from a single genre or time period. The title track is ’80s-pop revivalism, not unlike material on the Jonas Brothers reunion album. On “Bend the Rules,” Horan lowers his voice a few octaves to a breathy husk—instead of leaning on his old school Americana tendencies, he laments over a Tobias Jesso Jr. tune. And “Put a Little Love on Me” could be a b-side to Lewis Capaldi’s blockbuster hit “Someone You Loved.” Like Capaldi and Ed Sheeran before him, Horan’s most effectual musical moments are found in his painfully earnest songs, delivered over radio-friendly, intergenerational, inoffensive hooks. If there wasn’t an element of self-deprecation, it would register as cringeworthy.