On December 14, 2018, Zayn Malik released his sophomore album, Icarus Falls. Two years after releasing his debut album as a solo artist after departing from One Direction, Mind of Mine,  Zayn Malik makes a comeback with a 27-track album. The album shifts moods through the whole tracklist, venturing into excitement, love, and nostalgia while maintaining Zayn’s signature R&B sound as he explores through different musical styles and emotions. The track list includes:

1. Let Me
2. Natural
3. Back To Life
4. Common
5. Imprint
6. Stand Still
7. Tonight
8. Flight Of The Stars
9. If I Got You
10. Talk To Me
11. There You Are
12. I Don’t Mind
13. Icarus Interlude
14. Good Guy
15. You Wish You Knew
16. Sour Diesel
17. Satisfaction
18. Scripted
19. Entertainer
20. All That
21. Good Years
22. Fresh Air
23. Rainberry
24. Insomnia
25. No Candle No Light (feat. Nicki Minaj)
26. Fingers
27. Too Much (feat. Timbaland)

The album followed the release of eight singles starting off with “Still Got Time” featuring PartyNextDoor released on March 24, 2017. The single peaked at number 24 on the UK Singles Chart. Following up next was “Dusk Till Dawn,” a collab with Sia, that quickly soared to number 5 on the UK Singles Chart. “Let Me,” the album opener, was the third single released.  Up next, came the songs “Entertainer,” “Sour Diesel,” “Too Much,” “Fingers,” and “No Candle No Light.”

The first promotional single after the announcement that the album was available for pre-order was “Rainberry,” released on November 30th. On December 6, 2018, Zayn released his second promotional single, “Good Years.” Rumors quickly started to arise on social media claiming that this song was dedicated to his time with One Direction. With lyrics such as “I see a crowd of a thousand tears/I pray to God I didn’t waste all my good years,” the suspicion that Zayn is singing about his past experiences with the band and how he was unhappy during his One Direction days, as he has mentioned before. However, it is just a theory but it is no question that Zayn wonders whether he has wasted his “good years.” The third, and the final, promotional single was “There You Are,” which was released on December 12th.

The title of the album is an allusion to the myth of Icarus, the son of the master craftsman Daedalus who was the creature of the Labyrinth. Icarus and his father plan to escape from Crete, the largest and most populous Greek Island, by the use of wings that Daedalus constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus warns his son to not fly neither too low or too high so that he would not be brought down by the sea or the sun’s heat. However, Icarus chose to ignore his father and flew too close to the sun and the wings melted, causing him to plummet out of the sky into the water, where he drowned. Zayn mentions the theme of the myth, “Don’t fly too close to the sun,” in track 13 of the album, “Icarus Interlude”, as he starts the song with, “Call me Icarus/I guess I flew too close the sun.”

Zayn Malik has not toured his debut album, Mind Of Mine (2016), and fans are hopeful that he plans to tour Icarus Falls. Zayn has been very connected and active with his fans lately. A couple days before the release of the album, Zayn hosted a listening party in New York City where fans had the opportunity to attend for $30 and listen to his album before the rest of the world. The fans who attended were able to interact with Zayn and insiders say that he invited a tattoo artist and paid for all of the tattoos that fans had received. Fans are waiting for more information about the future plans that Zayn Malik has in store.