Zayn Malik, now stylized as ZAYN, announced his departure from the popular British boy band One Direction March 25, 2015. A year later, Malik released his highly anticipated self-debut album “Mind of Mine.”

“Mind of Mine” consists of sultry R&B mixed with mature, hypnotizing sounds, showing a defiant change from the pop rock tunes he used to sing. Throughout “Mind of Mine,” Malik proves that he can really hold his own as an artist, as his vocal talent is highly impressive and evident in the high notes that he hits.

It’s a shame that his talent and ability was practically ignored in the past. However, it was hard to believe that when he was harmonizing with four other people and One Direction songs didn’t properly show off his vocal capability.

Malik somewhat addresses his exit from the band in the song “BeFoUr.” Lyrics that stood out in the song are the following: “You’ve got your tongue in your cheek/ so pardon if I don’t speak/ can’t tune my chords into your songs, no.”

“BeFoUr” is one of the biggest successes from “Mind of Mine” because this song appropriately showed off his excellent vocal range. Another great song is “PILLOWTALK” AND “sHe,” both of which unexplainably exude a peaceful, pleasing mood for the listener.

While these songs and others like “TiO,” “dRuNk” and “iT’s YoU” ran with the same repetitive themes about love, intimate situations and moving on/starting over, Malik manages to make them all unique. Another positive is that out of the 18 songs on the album, only one featured artist was listed, which proves that you don’t need guest appearances to make an album great.

Though the album was great, there were a few downsides. One is the transitioning of songs. When one listens to the songs in their original order everything falls into place. The first track naturally leads the listener into the next track and the cycle continues. Though this might sound good to some, your original favorite songs might turn into your least favorite ones. Finally, the four last songs are hard to get into, as they sound pretty bland which makes them hard to enjoy.

Even though Malik has a few kinks to work out as a solo artist, overall “Mind of Mine” proves that pursuing a solo career was the best decision he ever made.