Niall Horan releases second album Heartbreak Weather

The latest forecast includes some Heartbreak Weather.

Early Friday morning, Niall Horan released his second solo effort after One Direction went on hiatus in 2016. Heartbreak Weather is a self-described concept album about a breakup.

"I had so much fun and a lot of hard moments writing this album and I'm very proud of the record as a body of work," Horan tweeted as the album dropped. "NOW IT'S YOURS."

Horan previously told James Corden on The Late Late Show, "Breakup albums can be very, like, 'I'm so sad. It's all about me. My side of things.' This time I was trying to write from the different angles, from the other person's angle, from people looking in potentially, that kind of thing. And the weather, I was correlating to different feelings that you would have as you come out of a breakup."

Horan split from actress-singer Hailee Steinfeld in 2018 after several months of dating, and she released a song called "Wrong Direction," which many speculated was about Horan. The demise of their relationship seems to have had a lasting impact on him — in the form of an entire album's worth of songs.

The former boy bander has already released three singles off the new album. He dropped the first song, "Nice to Meet Ya" last October, while "Put a Little Love on Me" hit the airwaves in early December. In February, he dropped his third single, "No Judgments," and revealed the album's title and release date. "No Judgments" debuted at number 97 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming his fifth track to hit said chart.

While the run-up to Horan's album release has been cheeky, including an Anchorman-inspired reveal of his track list and a weeklong residency on The Late Late Show, Heartbreak Weather is debuting in a time of uncertainty. As fears mount about the spread of COVID-19, artists are canceling and postponing concert tours.

Horan joked about the unfortunate situation on Twitter: "Surely as far as ‘difficult second albums’ go, I’ve smashed it with my timing."

Horan is poised to kick off a tour in support of Heartbreak Weather, beginning April 20 in Nashville, but it seems likely many of those dates will be postponed as precautionary measures remain in place.

Fortunately, fans can still listen to Heartbreak Weather to their heart's content, perhaps with the title an even more fitting reflection of our current moment.

Related content:

• Niall Horan has one-night stand with his dream girl in 'Nice to Meet Ya' video
• One Direction Made in the AM: Behind the scenes with Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson
• Niall Horan listens to Dua Lipa, Springsteen, and more on tour — check out his exclusive playlist