hm. I’m gonna give it a B. A pretty high B, but a B. I dunno, this one was tough for me to rank. I think the “competency” I praised Horan for is present again here, but I think it’s directed in a way that’s more interesting to me. There were songs that I felt like I had to listen to twice to really get the feel of. It shifted further away from the pure, clean, hyper-polish-produced boyband music, shifted away more laterally. It felt almost britpoppy to me several times, which isn’t that surprising but I did think it was interesting. There’d be snippets that I felt were straight Noel Gallagher, in a definite good way.
I’ve got one more 1D boy to examine, and right now I think he’s the one I’m actually the most curious about. I’ve been thinking of my 1D listening as a bunch of branching off in a very visual way. Everything starts with 1D and when the boys do their own thing it’s really easily to mentally place it as a movement in relation to and from that common 1D origin. Horan continues forward along the original branch, making progress but not moving beyond. Styles branches off into something more indie-pop, and pushes it far. Tomlinson branches off into something more brit-pop, hints of alt-rock, but doesn’t take it as far as I want him to. Payne gets confused and makes a knot on the tree. So, I think I’d still say Tomlinson “moves beyond”, I’m curious about him and where he goes from here, but I don’t think he’s there yet. Maybe I’ll change my mind, I’m not opposed to it
tunafruitsandwitch 
I didn’t mint it, I didn’t love it. After reading your review I am curious what I missed. You are convincing that there is more there than I realized. I am interested in listening to anything future from Louis Tomlinson. But for now he gets a strong C.
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