Capitol
Soft Rock, 2020
Look, it was inevitable. The scruffy facial hair. The slight “I enjoy my pints and I’m not sorry” dadbod. That “come have a drink and tell dirty jokes with me at the pub” aura. Somewhere between Flicker and Heartbreak Weather, Niall Horan completed his Pokémon evolution from Somnambulant Soft Boi to Pub-Roaming Sad Eyed Irish Dreamboat™ and you know what? It’s… kind of hot.
But enough about that, let’s talk about this album, which caught this reviewer completely off guard. I pressed play expecting harmless background noise while doom-scrolling TikTok, and suddenly I’m four songs deep, emotionally invested, and softly swaying like a middle-aged auntie at a Westlife concert. How dare you, Niall.
The title track, Heartbreak Weather, is a cheese-fest of the highest order. If you told me this was the opening credits theme to a 1996 sitcom about a quirky family in Dublin, I’d believe you. But blast it—that chorus SLAPS. It’s shoulder-shimmy-inducing pop rock fluff, and I won’t hear otherwise.
Then comes Black and White. Ah yes, the angst of young love—so intense, so melodramatic, so Bryan Adams before he started writing songs for every Disney animal romance. It’s wildly earnest and exactly the kind of song you drunkenly sing into a hairbrush after too many gin and tonics, believing you too are worthy of a love as cinematic as this.
Dear Patience is Broody McBroody in peak form, crooning about a relationship on the rocks with such sincere Irish anguish it makes you want to dump your emotionally unavailable situationship and volunteer as tribute. Seriously, girl, leave him. Niall’s waiting.
The rest of the album is basically the Netflix Romantic Melodrama: The Greatest Hits playlist come to life. Mr Horan’s grown, both as a vocalist and a storyteller, and he’s here to serve heartbreak, longing, and mid-tempo bops with the gravitas of a man who’s seen some shit. Harry Styles might be busy making peacocks cry with his feather boas, but Mr Horan’s making music for the over-caffeinated, mildly heartbroken adults who still believe in love but would also like a beer and maybe a nap.
Then, there is the holy grail: Dress.
Oh. My. God.
This song wasn’t even in the original release, which was a crime against humanity, but thank the streaming gods for this rerelease. Dress is a melancholic, gorgeously visual gut-punch about using a forgotten dress to worm your way back into an ex’s life, and it’s absolute perfection. It’s poignant, it’s country-tinged, it’s Irish-lilted—it’s the one. It made this reviewer declare, without shame, that he is officially a Niall Horan stan. And I meant it.
Heartbreak Weather is such a glow-up from Flicker, it’s like watching a former geeky high school classmate come back from college hot. It makes admitting you’re a Niall Horan fan not just acceptable, but arguably even cool. Everyone else can keep fawning over Mr Styles, I’m happy here on Team Horan, sipping my Guinness, getting misty-eyed to Dress, and feeling no shame whatsoever.
