Poised to kick off his North American tour in June, Noah Kahan continues to break records and unite fans with his new album “The Great Divide”.
The past four years Noah Kahan fans have been riding off his biggest hitting album of his career: Stick season. Not just the fans, not just the labels, but Noah Kahan himself wonders if he can create an album that can live up to Stick Season.
Stick season exudes a small town vibe, highlighting a more simple life and relatable struggles. It was written in Kahan’s hometown of Vermont in a mental state Kahan himself can’t describe.
In his recent Netflix documentary Out of Body reviewing his life and career, he talks about his mental struggles in relation to his art. If he’s not depressed, he often wonders how his art will remain relatable.
There’s two ways to listen to an album. You can casually listen to a couple songs or listen to the album front to back. The two provide vastly different experiences.
If you listen to just a couple songs, you might discover a hit or find a new addition to your playlist. But you miss the story. Artists arrange their music in an order for an experience, for a story.
Kahan’s 17-song record starts off with “End of August”. The song starts with bugs buzzing and makes you feel in a place of peace. There is strong imagery incorporated of places Noah has been and that feel like home to him. This longer song set the tone of this album as a work completely separate from Stick Season. This song slowly builds and has emotional weight in the chorus.
The next song “Doors” is a little more upbeat then “End of August” and continues to help set the tone. He most recently performed this single on Saturday Night Live May 9.
Kahan continues to ride the good vibes into the next song “American Cars”. He starts the song off with “I was working on a plan to disappear completely. Gas lighting my friends thinking I was busy”. The bridge to “American Cars” feels like the climax of the song which is different from a lot of songs. Its melody is not only catchy but evokes emotion in listeners.
“Paid Time Off” is a traditional Kahan song that is catchy and provides a melody that keeps you coming back. These lyrics hold weight because of the privilege it is to choose what you do in your time.
The Vermont native sings, “Someone once said there’s a world out there, but we don’t care to drive that far… a pack of cigarettes and a round of golf , make a livin’ workin’ for the paid time off”.
Later on we get to a song called “Haircut” that greatly represents the album as a whole. The line “I’m happy for your hair cut” demonstrates the idea of turning to home with relationships that were broken by the road of life.
Kahan ends the album with a song that provides insight into his life before fame. To the simple times he had with his best friend Dan and how he wants to talk about life with him.
Lyrics like “lets talk about him.. Lets talk about highschool lets talk about death” source from specific memories he has. It jumps into the chorus surprisingly with the lyrics “cause I’m with my best friend Dan now camping on the county line, hand around a Miller Lite, waiting for the sun to rise, couple of hometown heroes fighting over politics, sitting and remembering, young men from different sides.”
These lyrics talk about the beauty in the normalcy he can still experience with his friend. He ends the chorus with the lines “and we’re so alone, most of the time, most of the time, we don’t have anyone, where do we go, when we die, when we die I wouldn’t mind right here, No I wouldn’t mind at all.” Those lyrics speak for themselves.
The main takeaway from “The Great Divide” is that it is more complex than Stick Season. The production is immaculate and it tells a great story.
People often wonder what you still have to write about if you are a famous musician, but he makes that happen perfectly. It might not have as many catchy melodies in the choruses of Stick Season, but that’s not what Kahan was going for. This album is emotionally heavy and vulnerable.
At this album’s worst, it’s a flood of songs that all sound similar and have the same generic themes. Critics say there’s only so much you can do off of riding the 2010s “stomp clap” style.
But if visited deeper “The Great Divide” is a unique release that conveys many messages with one unifying theme. The production is excellent and, similar to most of Noah Kahan’s songs, there is deep emotionality. There is raw honesty. That’s what makes this album so special.
It doesn’t sing about a pickup truck, it doesn’t have one catchy metaphor that seems clever, there is a true story of someone’s life told across the tracklist. This album gets a 9.2/10.
