Harry Styles transitions smoothly into his next era with the

Harry Styles transitions smoothly into his next era with the intimate “Harry’s House”: Album Review

A little over five years ago, Harry Styles released a solo debut that absolutely no one saw coming, especially from a guy who just 18 months earlier closed the door on his role as lead heartthrob on pop juggernaut One Direction. Harry Styles was a timeless, oddly genreless album that sounded vaguely like an early 1970s pop collection and like nothing else to be released that year. Regardless, it was a hit and gave the young singer the runway to find his sea legs as a solo artist — and, more importantly, a clean slate to follow with whatever he wanted. This was 2019’s more formative and definitive Fine Line album that could be considered his true debut, spawning massive singles like Watermelon Sugar and a blockbuster tour (when delayed by a pandemic) that went straight to Harry’s House ” transforms. this is very much a continuation and evolution of its predecessor.

Which isn’t to say it doesn’t behave: Harry’s House is a little more intimate and less stadium-sized than its predecessor. Lyrically, it’s heavier and more serious in places – not surprising after everything that’s happened in the two-and-a-half years since “Fine Line” was released just before the pandemic. In this context, the number of musicians involved is also much smaller: the album was made almost entirely with longtime collaborators Kid Harpoon (Jessie Ware, Shawn Mendes, Florence & the Machine) and Tyler Johnson (Sam Smith, Cam ), and they also played most instruments, although John Mayer and Ben Harper make cameos with six strings.

After a rousing start with the horn-flecked “Music in a Sushi Restaurant” and the ’80s-tinged “Late Night Talking”, the album settles into an easy, leisurely groove that mixes moods and tempos but never gets too chilled: Just as you sit back, a song like the effortlessly upbeat lead single “As It Was” (which has already topped the charts in several countries) bursts through like the sun after a summer rain.

The songs are mostly about romance and sex, but get darker when they appear to be aimed at specific people or situations. “Daylight” is full of drug references, “Matilda” is for someone with a troubled family history, and the adorable “Boyfriends” — which premiered at Coachella last month — is for a friend in a toxic relationship: Styles sings “You love a fool who.” knows how to get under your skin”, accompanied only by Harper on acoustic guitars and his own impressively multi-tracked harmonies. But it’s not all serious, either: There’s also the laid-back Timberlake funk of “Cinema,” the Beatlesy “Grapejuice,” and a beautiful ballad called “Little Freak.”

Six and a half years after Harry Styles took his final bow with One Direction, one can imagine that a significant portion of his audience has no recollection of his time with the group that made him a star. And at 28, not quite so young anymore, he’s built an enviable solo career that’s taking Harry’s House far.

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