Room under the stairs

Zayn's solo career has been a series of struggles and beginnings, a product of a modern pop landscape where being a talented singer isn't enough to capture the hype. It may have been a mistake to initially define himself by what he was not: not a Simon Cowell siel, not a boy band idol, not over laborious concept albums. His chosen character, the troubled Don Juan, challenging as he is, is not exactly unique. even the Weeknd has begun to operate beyond his creative boundaries. And with ROOM UNDER THE STAIRSZayn seems to be finally shedding that tried-and-true persona, at least to an extent.

If you've ever tuned into SiriusXM's The Coffee House station, you know what this album sounds like. Stripping away the pulsating, club-ready R&B of Zayn's past solo work, the Dave Cobb co-production paints a new backdrop of beachy guitar and live drums, playing into Zayn's former One Direction role as an introverted singer. “I'm finding my way on the highway this year,” he declares on “Concrete Kisses,” over shimmering keys and a meandering bassline. Recorded at his home in rural Pennsylvania, this is apparently meant to be Zayn's upcoming clean, “back to basics” record, channeling Chris Stapleton (another Cobb collaborator) and John Legend as a way of projecting sensibility. The sound is pleasant enough, if a bit too graphic. The strongest entries are the trio of songs Zayn didn't write: “Stardust” is an ode to new love, “Something in the Water” is Zayn doing his best. Blonde impression, and “False Starts” carries a drive sorely lacking throughout.

While it's not entirely devoid of party references – “So fucking, I can't feel my face” –ROOM UNDER THE STAIRS gestures toward a more obscure messiness of long-term relationships. “Take me as I am, I'm tired/Dancing around the point,” Zayn sings on “What I Am,” and then proceeds to spend the entire album doing just that. Apart from a few genuine whiners (“Got a big old cup of shit/Told me to drink it”), the lyrics are mostly forgettable mush, circular nothings like, “These days, I live to my depiction” (“Grateful”) or , “With no senses, ain't no sentence/Making sense of us” (“Dreamin”). These muddled thoughts only enhance the songs as background music—the soundtrack to a coffee shop where you only have to hear every third word, or the needle drops on reality TV every time one contestant proposes to the other. Is not badby themselves, but they are anonymous.

ROOM UNDER THE STAIRS follows Zayn's split from on-again-off-again partner Gigi Hadid, which ended in 2021 when Zayn pleaded no contest to four counts of harassment for allegedly hitting Hadid's mother. So why are the relationship narratives on this album ambiguous to the point of meaninglessness? There's a moment of surprising emotional clarity on “Shoot at Will,” a revealing track where Zayn references his and Hadid's daughter: “When I look at her, all I see is you/When you look at her, do you see me?” But for the most part, Zayn seems much more comfortable wearing the mask of vulnerability rather than actually practicing it.