Music

Zayn aims for folksy reflection on “How It Feels” — the song opens with the linex “I’ve been getting old standin’ by the river,” after all — and arrives at wrenching balladry, repeating the phrase “breaking my heart” as the piano taps away at his pain. The song finds the singer demanding authenticity while struggling to find solid ground and ends in medias res, the tenderness of his voice releasing its grip on the track and floating away.

Positioned after the lovely “Stardust” on the track list, “Gates of Hell” turns the sweet into sour, as Zayn slurs his resentments (“I don’t like you very much/ But I keep putting up with your s–t”) and flips off his naysayers in between unruly guitar strums. For those waiting to hear Zayn fully removed from any 1D sheen, “Gates of Hell” is the song for you — this is raw, rough around the edges and intriguingly unbothered with pop appeal.

“We plan, God laughs,” goes the old proverb, and “Concrete Kisses” captures those intentions going awry — with Zayn wanting to settle in for a soothing cup of coffee and instead landing flat on his face. The song shrugs off the misery with rollicking keyboard work and full-bodied soul-rock, including an outro that lets Zayn croon through his woes before letting the instrumentation breathe and settling into his new reality.

Zayn’s sonic reinvention arrives immediately in the Room Under the Stairs track list, as the opener “Dreamin” pairs his general sense of yearning with blues-rock that reaches out for listener participation. His voice navigates the switch-up with ease, tumbling over the guitar and elongating the syllables on lines like “IIIIII’ve been dreamin’, feeeeeelin‘ this way” to capture his desire for more.

When Zayn sings “When I look at her, all I see is you/ When you look at her, do you see me, too?,” in the middle of “Shoot At Will,” he’s searching for a semblance of home, with his daughter’s face providing a symbol of connection between generations. Although Zayn spends much of “Shoot At Will” sounding resigned to an unhappy fate, the tender acoustic guitar offers a glint of hope, as the song threatens to boil over into buoyant folk-pop but never crosses the threshold.

“When I’m tellin’ this story it’s complicated / Some mishaps I’ve been mournin’ but I’m grateful for it,” Zayn sings on “Grateful,” his falsetto joining his voice in harmony to convey the urgency of his message. He sounds fully unlocked over the swaying rock production here, embracing past errors and feeling comfortable in his current skin; that force of personality drives “Grateful,” as if Zayn’s own confidence convinces the listener to buy in.

Maybe it’s the honeyed mix of guitar and drums, or the way Zayn rolls through lines like “Time’s running its own game” with maximum twang, but it’s not hard to imagine a song like “The Time” receiving some consideration for country radio play. Working his way through a tangle of thoughts with confidence, Zayn reflects on shifting priorities through the prism of early fame, opting for quiet moments in a shared bed as preferred adoration instead of international stardom.

Zayn’s voice is purposely thinned out on “Birds on a Cloud,” pleading for “one more day of happiness” while sounding emotionally wobbly and admitting that, even if his love is flawed, he needs it to feel complete. The brittleness of the performance is effective given the lyrical themes: Even as the production drives ahead, Zayn sounds broken on the track, trying to collect himself and keep up with the changing world around him.

As the lead single from Room Under the Stairs, “What I Am” was downright startling upon its release, fully removing Zayn from his past rhythmic-pop territory and embarking on a folksy new beginning. The track sounds more at home in the context of the full album, although it remains effective as a declaration of intent — there are no half-measures in this makeover, and co-producer Dave Cobb is along for the ride to help give the singer a rustic new singalong.

Zayn has stated that “Alienated” was “the first song I wrote for the album, so it kind of set the tone for the whole project”; indeed, the song scans as a foundation for Room Under the Stairs, considering Zayn’s unkempt croon, the country-rock undertones and a soulfulness that connects the song with his past oeuvre. “Alienated” will delight fans of Chris Stapleton’s song construction, but when Zayn hits that falsetto on the hook, the song declares itself as unique to his skill set.

“False Starts” is an invitation to a new beginning, both personal and artistic: “No one ever has to know/ But I know I have to go,” Zayn concludes after reflecting on subtle progressions and opportunities that didn’t quite pan out. Although the understated production highlights the tranquil acceptance of the changes that Zayn is singing about, the vocal performance on “False Start” becomes dynamic enough to carry the song, with the singer leaning into his falsetto and showing off the full spectrum of his technical talent.

Although Zayn caps off Room Under the Stairs with its shortest track, “Fuchsia Sea” pulls at multiple interesting threads in under two-and-a-half minutes, including a wall of harmonies not heard previously on the album, and a thumping soul only hinted at elsewhere. The wounded vocal take — “How can you break when you’re broken to begin with?” Zayn asks at one point — feels authentic and hard-fought, helping to push “Fuchsia Sea” over the top at the end of the album.

“My Woman” contains a handful of nifty tricks from Zayn: The chorus, which is first deployed as a campfire warble, grows into an arena shout by its second usage, and the wordplay across the verses is clever enough to take a few listens to fully sink in. Yet the track also works as a simple, spaced-out rocker, with Zayn hovering above a collection of guitars, keys and drums and threatening to fall to pieces, “just for the fun of it.”

On a song that focuses on a relationship that feels so natural that it resembles the oxygen that he inhales, Zayn locates a beautiful meeting point between the R&B stylings of his solo past and the more guitar-driven fare he explores on the rest of Room Under the Stairs. The way that the word “water” is warped at the end of the opening chorus suggests a deviation from the album’s acoustic chorus, but the hook on “Something in the Water” is a cross-genre gem, giving Zayn a chance to delve into wedding-song material in earnest.

When a pop artist makes a sharp stylistic pivot, they still will typically draw upon their past work, however subtly, to illustrate their new evolution. On “Stardust,” the clear standout track from Room Under the Stairs, Zayn operates in a different sound than he’s used to, but relies on his well-worn vocal warmth and previous iterations of fluttery romance. “Stardust” benefits from a sense of tempo and nicely crafted hooks, but Zayn provides the song with a personality, and turns it into a career highlight.