Harry Styles – Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally

On his fourth studio album, Harry Styles has renewed himself once more. Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally is expansive and intimate and totally addicting. As a disco ball glitters from the sky, and Styles dances in the dark, the album’s cover screams dance. Yet in his decade-long solo career, Styles has never stuck to one lane. This new project proves just that; it pulls influences from anywhere and everywhere – Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, Prince, and Jack Jones to name but a few – in a jubilant expression of music and the power it has, pushing Styles and his listeners into exciting new places.

First single Aperture opens, its repeated “we belong together” mantra a reminder of the community fans of Styles have created over the years. Styles has repeated his admiration of the love they share in the pits of his shows; Aperture is an all-consuming, anthemic celebration of this.

There is a split between the understated, hazy, piano-led numbers and the thumping, bass-face-inducing, Daft Punk-esque tracks. The opening chords of American Girls evoke such nostalgia, leading into a subtle, hypnotic chorus. Ready, Steady, Go feels like whiplash – intense vocal effects, jarring electronic slider, overlaid harmonies. Are You Listening? boasts a similar heavy bass and quick beat, making it impossible not to pump your neck. The verses are spoken, and the chorus is a building, persistent chant about listening to yourself. “If you must join a movement, make sure there’s dancing,” he implores: dancing is rebellion, he is saying.

Just when you feel like you know where he’s going, Taste Back and The Waiting Game remind you that you don’t. Taste Back laments the confusing experience of seeing a former partner and not knowing where you stand. A lot of the album has this bittersweet undercurrent. In Season 2 Weight Loss he’s begging to be loved; in Pop he’s pulling on threads until he breaks; in Paint by Numbers, he knows that life is not something he can control. Dance No More and Coming Up Roses are peaks for very different reasons. While Dance No More is meant for the pulsing floors of an NYC dancehall in the 80s, Coming Up Roses is an emotional sucker punch, perhaps his most enthralling since Fine Line.

Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally is a record that sweats and sparkles and sighs and one which will explode when he plays it live in Wembley Stadium this summer. While plunging into a new era, Styles is neither out of his depth nor forgetting the music that shaped his rise – it is still unequivocally Harry Styles.