On Friday, May 17, Zayn recently released a new album called “Room Under the Stairs”, which includes 15 tracks and a lead single called, “What I Am,” as well as a few additional tracks called “Alienated,” “My Woman,” “Stardust,” “Something in the Water,” “Fuchsia Sea” and more.

Room Under the Stairs is one of Zayn’s first full-length solo projects since his previous album, “Nobody is Listening,” released in 2021. Since his absence from One Direction in 2015, Zayn has pursued a solo career and has been pretty successful. In this new album, his vocals were top tier and the production and variety of different songs offered were unique and produced very well. With this, the sequence and choice and verse-to-chorus transitions were always smooth, an example of this being the song “Something in the Water,” which fit the concept of his album well and matched the overall vibe he wanted to portray.

Further listening, I was able to appreciate a lot more on the album because it offered edgier, grittier, sadder songs which was overall a good artistic choice on Zayn’s part. As well as this, “What I Am,” with many other songs was cohesive, relaxing and very intriguing, and Zayn brought a new part of himself onto the album which was portrayed very well. Every song on the album brought a new perspective of a glimpse of what Zayn has been through at various stages in his life and brought his songs and the album to life.

In general, this is an emotional album but it’s hard to classify what genre of music this would be considered to be put into; here is a bit of R&B, folk, rock, country and blues. The story it tells is something many people can relate to and in all is a very honest album. Furthermore, the album is beautiful and sincere, and his raw vocals really pull everything together.