When an artist as popular as Harry Styles releases an album, it’s inevitable that the noise and expectation surrounding it cloud the music initially, with fans and critics jumping to share their intensely positive or intensely negative long held thoughts about the musician’s place in the cultural landscape, regardless of how the album sounds. Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. feels like it needs more time to land, probably intentionally. The tracks are slow building, casual and subdued but all feel like they’ll mature well, even if the initial spark is missing.
As is typical of a Harry Styles album, there are a few great tracks and a few that fill the gaps between them nicely. Less typically, the genre is much more electronic and dance than it is pop rock, a subtle reinvention that sacrifices the likelihood of timeless hits but allows for a level of integrity that is probably more Important at this stage in Styles’ career. Highlights include “Taste Back”, “Pop”, and “Dance No More”, as well as the signature ballads “Paint By Numbers” and “Coming Up Roses”.
The album is cohesive in its theme, it feels like being part of the small group left at the end of a party when laughter has turned to existential crises and the emotion in any song at all becomes palpable. Lyrically, it tackles a lot of the topics that arise in those moments, and sonically it is probably his most unified album yet. The same feeling of jaded reflection exists in the upbeat synth heavy dance tracks as it does the ballads.
Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. will age well, in part due to its place in the career of an incredibly successful artist, and in part due to its genuine strengths. The freedom of popularity has allowed Harry to explore new genres, all within a pop realm, and it mostly works because of the charisma and talent that made him popular in the first place.
