Noah Kahan- The Great Divide
Label: Mercury
Producers: Noah Kahan, Aaron Dessner, Gabe Simon
When Noah Kahan broke through the mainstream pop ceiling in 2023 with the folk-rock/Americana sounds of his third album, Stick Season, it marked what is still an anomaly in the Hot 100 sphere, despite the considerable inroads that acts like Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers made during the folk-rock crossover wave of the 2010s. While it seemed like widespread audiences had burned out on that movement, Kahan’s success reawakened the hunger for organic musicianship and gritty, heartfelt storytelling amidst a modern pop scene that will always be primarily rooted in glossier and more synthetic tapestries.
Kahan’s music clearly struck a far-reaching chord with audiences, quickly catapulting him as an arena, and even stadium, level headlining act. But this success also clearly had a major impact on his personal relationships and family ties, while also placing an enormous amount of pressure on the creation of this successor. Like all great folk poets of his ilk, Kahan taps into all of these emotions and experiences to form the foundation for said successor. Though not formally a full-blown concept album, the great, common thread of The Great Divide proves to be the intense interpersonal navigating that celebrity has faced Kahan in the wake of his increased profile.
The resulting record feels like his most pivotal, poignant, and at times, painfully resonant body of work to date. At seventeen tracks, it certainly continues the modern-day trend of risking album “bloat”, and given Kahan’s output throughout the Stick Season era, there’s probably a boat-load of bonus cuts on the way as well. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to complain about such a bountiful harvest of music when the songs are this uniformly strong and emotionally purposeful. And while the record definitely feels longest on the first listen–it initially longs for more frequent tempo or tonal changes–the emotional intensity and durability of the songs amps up considerably with repeat listens. Ultimately, you realize that Kahan and his new production team, including The National’s Aaron Dessner, made all the right sonic and stylistic choices for these songs. This record is what we call a “grower”, and it proves to be one of recent time’s most satisfying in that regard.
The gorgeously evocative opener, “End of August” puts tremendous spotlight on the vivid and reflective imagery at the core of Kahan’s greatest strengths as a writer, with the seasonal transition of summer to fall representing a conflict that reigns as the central pillar of the record. A conflict between the comfort of quieter, nostalgic moments in the midst of the chaotic lifestyle of a famous musician, and the challenging impacts that lifestyle has had on his connections with the formative influences of his pre-fame life, notably with both his hometown and his parents.
These complex emotions and tussles are explored in a variety of ways, from the rollicking Heartland Rock of “American Cars” or the stirring emotional weight of the title track, to the gutting internal struggles and guilt of “”All Them Horses” and “Spoiled”, to the folksy, homespun wit of “Dashboard” and “Headed North”, to the painful honesty of parent-child narratives in “Haircut”, “Porch Light”, and “Deny, Deny, Deny”. The album ultimately concludes with “Dan”, a tribute to his best friend who has stuck by him through all of his successes and failures. It provides a fittingly and comfortingly hopeful end to an album that is prominently melancholic over the strain that Kahan feels in virtually every other relationship in his life. “Dan” conversely serves as a beacon to end on, representing a powerful remaining connection between his origins and his new life. By subverting the solemn themes throughout the rest of the album, it adds further weight to the overall narrative arc of the record.
The Great Divide is indeed great; a record that feels worthy of Noah Kahan’s newly-acquired box-office status, while still vibrantly tethered to the rich but humble folk origins of his raspy, resonant singing, intimately personal song-craft, and overall focus on classic musical storytelling. It’s a gripping opus of artistic expression and personal exploration, one that stands to be a watershed release in his own catalog, and deserves to stand as one in the overall 2020s music landscape as well, transcending beyond the boundaries of pop, rock, and Americana.
Track Listing:
- “End of August” (Noah Kahan, Aaron Dessner)
- “Doors” (Kahan, Sam Westhoff)
- “American Cars” (Kahan, Carrie K, Noah Levine, Gabe Simon)
- “Downfall” (Kahan, Desnner, Simon)
- “Paid Time Off” (Kahan, Carrie K, Simon, Westhoff)
- “The Great Divide” (Kahan, Simon)
- “Haircut” (Kahan, Nina de Vitry)
- “Willing and Able” (Kahan, Levine)
- “Dashboard” (Kahan, Amy Allen, Carrie K, Simon)
- “23” (Kahan)
- “Porch Light” (Kahan, Dessner)
- “Deny Deny Deny” (Kahan, Todd Clark, Carrie K, Simon, Westhoff)
- “Headed North” (Kahan)
- “We Go Way Back” (Kahan, Dylan Jones, Carrie K, Simon)
- “Spoiled” (Kahan)
- “All Them Horses” (Kahan)
- “Dan” (Kahan, Dessner)
The 706 
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