Niall Horan has finished work on his fourth solo album after teasing he hopes to drop it “sometime this year”.
The former One Direction singer – who released new collaboration Drive Safe with Myles Smith earlier this month – confirmed work has wrapped on his highly anticipated follow-up to 2023’s The Show.
He posted to X alongside some behind-the-scenes clips and photographs from his recording days: “Album is DONE.”
Appearing on Zoom during the Hits Radio Breakfast Show with Fleur East, Will Best and James Barr recently, he provided the following update: “I’m in here finishing it right now. So I’m in the beat lab!
“I’m just finishing off some vocal bits and things like that, that I wasn’t happy with, but yeah!
“I should have music sometime this year. And I’m very excited about it!”
Niall’s first solo LP Flicker dropped in 2017 and reached number three in the UK, before he topped the charts with 2020’s Heartbreak Weather and 2023’s The Show.
Drive Safe marked his first new music since his third album, and he was already a fan of Myles before they worked together.
However, it was still an intimidating prospect.
Niall added: “It’s tough when someone asks you to do this because, it’s very close to his heart, something like very serious to him.
“And for me to then come and write the rest of it with him was obviously a tall ask.
“Then we just met up and we said we’d see what happened and we’re in the studio together and it just, it clicked.
“It meant something to me, and it meant something completely different to him and that’s the great thing about these kinds of things.”
In the powerful song, the two singer-songwriters sing about the importance of following your heart “wherever it takes you”, and that if “tears fall” along the way, that’s ok.
They sing: “Life is a road, don’t know what’s along the way / so drive safe.”
When the track was released, Myles opened up about the decision to get Niall on board.
He said in a statement: “Collaborations only really matter to me when they come from something real, and working with Niall genuinely did.
“He’s got this effortless instinct for melody, but beyond that he’s a good friend who very quickly became one of my closest.
“Our friendship shaped the song, and hopefully you can feel it in every line.”