After a long, 3 year hiatus from the spotlight, Harry Styles came back with a bang with his follow up album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. 

In January of this year, Styles went onto his social media and announced the title, release date and cover of his 4th studio album. A week after he released the lead single “Aperture” which debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, but came with mixed reactions from fans.

As a long time fan of Harry Styles and One Direction, I was very excited for his new album. I was also curious about how the album would sound, since the title implies that it was going to include disco. 

After coming to the album with high hopes and excitement, once I had my first listen I felt that it did live up to my expectations. I felt that the album also did live up to the title since there was clearly disco influence throughout, but I wouldn’t consider the album as disco, as I think it’s more closely related to electropop. 

The album starts off with the lead single “Aperture,” which starts off slow with an strong electronic sound and builds up having more drums and bass. The track starts to build up to the bridge and final chorus, where I feel that the song enters its peak. Although the chorus isn’t as catchy as his previous lead single, “As It Was”, I still feel the song has a charm, in the chorus he repeats “We belong together, It finally appears it’s only love.”

The following track “American Girls” keeps the momentum moving with a similar slower track to “Aperture”, but this song is shorter and feels more structured. The way Harry’s vocals sound in the chorus makes it feel more youthful and nostalgic like if this song was recorded in the 2010’s when he was still a part of One Direction. This song reminds me of the song “Stockholm Syndrome” from One Direction’s album Four, specifically during the intro where both songs are slow and then once the chorus rolls around it’s more upbeat. Also the music video for this song mirrors the music video from the song “Kiss You” where we see in both that Styles is clearly in a studio set recording behind a green screen while riding a motorcycle. This track talks about how he has seen his closest friends start to fall in love and he’s just in the sidelines watching this unfold, “I’ve seen it in stages all over the world, my friends are in love with American girls.”

Track 5 is called “Taste Back” which sort of reminds me of the music in the game Geometry Dash since it starts off calm and low and eventually adds more layers like drums and bass to the music. This song is much calmer compared to the rest since his vocals are softer and more soothing. Styles talks about the weird feeling that comes with reconnecting with someone from your past, “Must be lonely out in Paris if you talk like that, it was tough with the time, but you called me back.”

The album takes a different turn with the 8th song called “Coming Up Roses.” While the rest of the album kept more of an upbeat tone, this song is more melancholic and didn’t have much of an electronic and disco vibe, which makes it stand out from the rest. The song is reported to be the only song written entirely by Styles so this song is much more personal to him. The song talks about the vulnerability that comes with trying to repair a previous relationship, “But I’m scared if we’re both right, does that mean we’re not aligned?”

The disco aspect of the album finally hit the spotlight with the 10th song called “Dance No More.” This song clearly stands out as disco due to the more upbeat and groovy sound it has compared to the rest of the album. Although the song isn’t the best lyrically, I do feel that this song is the catchiest in comparison to the whole album since this song basically relies on the chorus to make it stand out. In the chorus Styles repeats “DJs don’t dance no more, We wanna dance with all our friends, It’s feeling like the music has been Heaven sent, And that there’s no difference in between the tears and the sweat,” with an extra layer that repeats “DJs don’t dance no more,” throughout the chorus. 

Traditionally the closing track of all Styles’ albums are some of the highlights and one of the most emotional songs on the album, and “Carla’s Song” is no exception. Although this song is more upbeat than his previous closing songs, it still pairs up well with the rest. This song is still slower but has a feeling that gives you hope, and instead of being about heartbreak this song centers around the beauty of experiencing life, 

Overall, I felt that this album met my expectations and was consistent throughout the whole album and there was no song that was bad or out of place (Maybe for the exception of Coming Up Roses, since it felt a little out of place). 

Even though the wait between his last album was long, I definitely thought it was worth the wait since he tried changing his style and succeeded in doing so. Although I felt this album isn’t better than Harry Styles (album) and Fine Line, I would put it above Harry’s House though, ranking number 3 in his discography. As a whole I would give this album a 9 out of 10.