Zayn’s departure from One Direction was world news. The social media outcry was monumental, and from the moment that he left the band, there was a huge amount of attention paid on what Zayn would do next. Separating himself from the pop image of One Direction became the overarching concern: dropping his surname and denouncing his clean-cut boy-band image, #ZAYN has presented himself as an independent artist with real creative autonomy. And this is what Mind of Mine represents, an unfiltered and uncensored presentation of Zayn as his own artist.

In this deliberate departure from the style of One Direction, Zayn undoubtedly marks himself as one of the frontrunners of contemporary R&B music. Throughout the album, Zayn seems to want to walk in the footsteps of Frank Ocean’s 2012 album, Channel Orange in particular – providing his own formidable version of sultry, dark R&B.

Mind of Mine is, at its core, an album about love. Its discussions of romance, sex and heartbreak are raw and personal, and the scope of emotion that represents lends the album an appealing sense of honesty. It stands as a cohesive piece with a range of intensity reflected from the more high energy tracks such as ‘LIKE I WOULD’ to the more gentle and acoustic moments, such as the track ‘iT’s YoU’.

A sense of cohesion across the album as a whole is further established by the inclusion of both ‘Intro’ and ‘Interlude’. The use of shorter interlude tracks is an interesting presence, something that arguably strengthens the album. Contrast this to Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo – Kanye’s short inserted tracks seem at times a reductive, disruptive distraction to the album’s progress. But in Mind of Mine, the short intro and interlude are endearing additions, providing a gentle link between contrasting tracks.The interlude, ‘fLoWer’, is a particularly engaging addition. In the task of establishing Zayn’s independent identity as his own artist, this track is striking given it is performed in Urdu, a nod to Zayn’s Pakistani heritage.

It all lends Mind of Mine a thoughtful, comforting sense of tranquillity throughout. The use of gentle echoes and reverbs throughout the album provides an ambience that almost evokes a sense of gospel music. The more outgoing tracks, such as ‘LIKE I WOULD’ and ‘PILLOWTALK’ are the moments where Zayn appears to present a distinctive sound, strangely enough; these moments are also where Mind of Mine is at its peak of pop. The more gentle ballad tracks, like ‘BoRdErZ’ are undoubtedly skilled and heartfelt tracks, but they seem almost familiar. During these tracks, there is a strong similarity to ‘sad era’ Drake, as exemplified by his 2011 release Take Care. While this isn’t to say the songwriting is particularly bad, it is true that its familiarity inhibits any sense of real individuality within Mind of Mine.

The celebrity of Zayn and his membership of One Direction made it inevitable that there was a huge amount of interest and attention paid to the creation and release of Mind of Mine. There was undoubtedly a sense of pressure upon Zayn as an independent artist to create something different from One Direction that would still be popular and well received. Mind of Mine suffers under this pressure. It is an album that, rather unavoidably, has been vastly over-hyped. While it is an enjoyable creation, it seems to lack a sense of excitement to make it live up to the interest in its release. That said, Mind of Mine serves as proof of the strength of Zayn as his own artist, and he is definitely worthy of a platform to create music on these new terms.