Niall Horan Is Releasing His First Solo Album Soon

Although it was heartbreaking when the boys of One Direction announced their hiatus in 2015 (never say that it was a split!), they’ve all proven that they’re totally worthy of solo careers. With every member of the group now having released singles, Niall Horan has announced the upcoming release of his first solo album,Entertainment Weekly reports.

Niall took to Twitter to share the news that his album Flicker will drop on Oct. 20. 

Apparently, Niall has always known what kind of music he'd like to have on a solo record. "I wanted to make music that would come really freely to me," he told EW, also reflecting on how different recording music alone was. "I had never really sung on a song for three and a half minutes."

Marked as an album of "relationship-based" songs, Flicker will include Niall's first solo single "This Town,""Slow Hands" and "Seeing Blind," a duet with Maren Morris. He's been busy performing these songs on his Flicker Sessions 2017 tour, which is scheduled to run until late November. 

The announcement comes after Niall's 24th birthday on Sept. 13. He received some adorable birthday love from former 1Ders Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson via Twitter and, of course, Niall had to respond directly to the good wishes. How sweet are these friendships, guys? 

Congrats to Niall on this exciting news! I can't wait to hear some of his new songs.