Album Review: Niall Horan releases “Dinner Party,” kicking off the summer music season

Audrey Coleman
Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:00:17 +0000
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Niall Horan performs during Wild 94.9’s Jingle Ball 2017 at SAP Center in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017. Credit: Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group via TNS.

Former One Direction star, and now solo artist, Niall Horan released his fourth studio album, “Dinner Party,” on Friday — just in time for summer nighttime listening and the season of weekend road trips.?

Horan rose to fame in 2010 after appearing on season seven of “The X Factor,” which led to the formation of One Direction, one of the biggest boy bands of all time. After five albums and hundreds of concerts, the band disbanded in 2015 to pursue solo careers, according to a BBC article.

Following his time in One Direction, Horan started to produce more mature pop music, with early solo hits like “This Town” and “Slow Hands,” hitting No. 20 and No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017, respectively. With three other songs in the Hot 100 throughout his career, excluding One Direction and featured tracks, Horan’s music has stayed consistent and well-known in the pop atmosphere.?

“Dinner Party” is no exception. The 12-track album carries an upbeat vibe while letting the slower songs speak for themselves.?

The first three tracks, “Tastes So Good,” “Dinner Party” and “Monochromatic” share warm, flirty undertones that blend together into a hazy, laid-back summer feel. They’re not meant to be heavy hitters — they’re designed to be feel-good tracks that make for easy listening.?

“Monochromatic” stands out among the three, despite being the simplest in theory, using only a layer or two of guitars and some drums to set the pace in the background.?

With implications more mature than any One Direction song, the album highlights Horan’s growth as an artist over the past 16 years.?

“She Gets It From Her Mother” takes a more 1970’s-adjacent approach, with melodic vocals and instrumentals. A soft fade-out at the end transitions smoothly into “Better Man,” the first ballad of the album.?

“Somebody who will hold you / Someone who’s always there / Somebody who will love you better than I can / Maybe there’s a better man,” Horan sings in the chorus. Though it might read a little pick-me or insincere, the earnest vocals help combat that.?

The record picks back up in tone with “Little More Time,” a classic yearning track disguised by happy vocals and light instrumentals. “Flowers” will find its way into a Lo-fi study beats playlist soon enough, serving as a calm cooldown from earlier tracks.?

“Boys Are Fun” may be the album’s only skip-worthy track because the lyrics don’t mesh with the rest of the album’s themes. It feels too similar to the One Direction era and could easily blend into a retail chain’s middle-of-summer playlist.

“Hey, if you’re still up when all the girls went home / If you want someone you can late-night call / That’s gonna come running any time you want / Then boys are fun,” Horan sings in the chorus. It’s a touch too teenage-pop-sounding compared to the rest of the tracks.?

“Fighting Over Nothing,” “Pretty” and “Die If I Don’t” thankfully pick up the slack from “Boys Are Fun” and carry the same energy from the opening three tracks. “Fighting Over Nothing” carries a similar meaning to “Monochromatic.”?

To end the album, “End Of An Era” comes in to make every Directioner shed a tear. Horan recently spoke on “And The Writer Is” podcast, hosted by Ross Golan, where he said the song went unfinished until he circled back after the death of his former bandmate Liam Payne, who died in 2024 after falling off a hotel balcony, according to a BBC article.?

“It’s a song of loss, and fear of loss and the end of an era,” Horan said on the podcast. “They are two of the feelings that I have when I think of [Payne] — the sadness that he’s not with us anymore, but also looking back at the good times and growing up together.”While it’s not the slowest on the record, it is the most vulnerable song from Horan’s entire discography. As a sentimental nod to a friend, it’s a great way to close out the album.

Overall, Horan’s newest album asserts itself in his discography extremely well, and will likely become a staple in summer playlists — best listened to while sitting on the porch with fairy lights twinkling above.