{"id":331528,"date":"2026-03-06T06:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331528\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T06:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:01:13","slug":"harry-styles-kiss-all-the-time-disco-occasionally-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331528\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Styles’ ‘Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally’: Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cWe Belong Together,\u201d read the teasers \u2014 plastered on posters around the world, flashing onscreen at the end of a cryptic clip of a live performance \u2014 heralding Harry Styles<\/a>\u2019 long-awaited return after years away from the spotlight. Styles had previously bid adieu on a high note: His third album, 2022\u2019s\u00a0Harry\u2019s House, had won the Grammy for album of the year, after being preceded by the biggest hit of his career in the 15-week Hot 100-topper \u201cAs It Was\u201d and yielding the globe-spanning Love on Tour live run.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe words \u201cWe Belong Together\u201d suggested that Styles had been missing those face-to-face fan interactions since he left the road in summer 2023; then, the phrase ended up as the centerpiece of \u201cAperture,\u201d the sleek, throbbing dance track that led his fourth solo album,\u00a0Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut one listen to the long-awaited new project reveals that \u201cWe Belong Together\u201d contains a third meaning: Styles spends the first album he\u2019s released in his 30s yearning for connection. He sings about the one-night stands that spilled over, the ones that got away (and then circled back into his orbit) and the one kind of undying love that\u2019s thus far eluded him. His hands are often outstretched over chattering beats and quickening tempos. His elliptical lyrics curl into rhetorical questions as the groove keeps going.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs \u201cAperture\u201d suggested,\u00a0Kiss\u00a0is Styles\u2019 most dance-forward project to date. More crucially, it is by far his most adult project, too. A natural-born superstar who has succeeded at every stage of his musical career, Styles has often projected a personal steadiness and positivity in his solo material \u2014 but here, he\u2019s prodding at his failures, desires, insecurities and greater place in the world. The fact that he decided to pair this thematic vulnerability with thumping production sometimes makes\u00a0Kiss\u00a0sound like the work of a wounded playboy, dancing away his regrets. It might just be the most compelling pose of Styles\u2019 career.<\/p>\n

\n\tWorking with longtime collaborators Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson, Styles has crafted a world of heavy bass and glowing synths; he\u2019s made danceable songs before, but\u00a0Kiss\u00a0impressively exists as a cohesive whole, removed from his past pop-rock oeuvre. Styles has talked about how the immersive thrill of LCD Soundsystem\u2019s live show helped inform the textures of the album, and indeed, some of the more swaggering moments \u2014 the shuddering fun of \u201cPop,\u201d the free-verse relentlessness of \u201cAre You Listening Yet?\u201d \u2014 recall James Murphy\u2019s hipster-friendly dance-rock. Yet the sound of\u00a0Kiss\u00a0more closely recalls the tender electro-pop of LCD contemporaries Hot Chip, with warm harmonies, existential wonderings and dynamic hooks deployed with care and precision.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of those moments, like the slightly sorrowful bleep-bloops of \u201cThe Waiting Game,\u201d are more well-equipped for headphones; others, like the call-and-response roof-rattler \u201cDance No More,\u201d will absolutely slay at Styles\u2019 upcoming live shows. Each detail of\u00a0Kiss\u00a0is delivered with a sense of large-hearted purpose, though. Within the instrumental pileup of \u201cSeason 2 Weight Loss,\u201d Ellie Rowsell\u2019s backing vocals haunt Styles like a siren; elsewhere, \u201cReady Steady Go!\u201d gains steam once a finger-picked guitar masterfully segues into Styles\u2019 fuzzed-over vocals. It\u2019s as if he took the longest break between albums of his career to untangle a plethora of sonic ideas and knotted-up feelings, and smoothed them out across 12 tracks.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a lifetime of learning to paint by numbers, and watching the colors run,\u201d Styles sings on the self-examining guitar ballad \u201cPaint by Numbers.\u201d The line is something of a mission statement for a former boy band member-turned-solo icon whose mind has turned to legacy. Styles may have checked every box of modern pop superstardom, but he\u2019s not satisfied with easy wins or a preconceived image \u2014 thus, the musical and lyrical pivot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTime will tell if\u00a0Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.\u00a0matches the commercial highs of his past work \u2014 \u201cAperture\u201d already debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100<\/a>, after all \u2014 but the album sets up Styles for a phase of professional and personal innovation. Ultimately, that\u2019s a more important achievement.<\/p>\n

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