The Distance That Stays: “The Great Divide” Album Review
Stick Season is the kind of album most artists would struggle to follow. Not because it was perfect, but because it felt so specific. It belonged to a place, a time and a version of Noah Kahan that made sense. Trying to recreate it would’ve felt hollow, but trying to outrun it would have felt dishonest.
The Great Divide does neither; instead, it sits in what came after. Not the success that followed nor the moment itself, but the distance between who you were when everything changed and who you are now.
And it’s not like that change was small. Now a two-time Grammy award nominee with two sold-out shows at Fenway Park, everything got bigger for Kahan, but his writing somehow remains just as personal. That specific gap between scale and reality runs through this record.
That idea has been hovering around Kahan for a while now, especially in the lead-up to this album and in his recent Netflix documentary, Noah Kahan: Out of Body.
It explores his rise to fame after Stick Season and his personal challenges that have come from that, providing an unfiltered look at his life and career, but most importantly, the process behind this album. What is apparent in both the documentary and this record is how aware he is of that shift. Not just the fame he has gained, but what it does to relationships, memory, and the way you understand and navigate your own life. The album feels like it is written from inside that confusion rather than looking back on it.
What has always set Kahan apart and what makes this shift land harder is how consistently he has written about mental health, not just as a concept but as a central theme woven throughout his catalogue. On this record, it feels less reflective and more immediate, like those same struggles have followed him into this new version of his life rather than being left behind.
That idea sits at the centre of the title track, “The Great Divide”, where distance is not just physically present but emotionally as well. It builds through miscommunication and the things left unsaid, showing how easily people can drift even when they are still trying to hold on. There is a lyric that captures this idea almost too well, “while you swore to god the singer read your mind”, and it feels strangely self-aware given the context of this record. Because that is exactly why his music resonates the way it does, it does not glamorise these experiences or exaggerate them. The writing feels familiar in a way that is almost uncomfortable at times, because it reflects things people understand but do not always necessarily want to hear.
Sonically, this is not a reinvention of “Stick Season”. It is still rooted in folk, still built around acoustic guitar and still recognisably him. But it feels different in how it sits. There is more space, more restraint.
“End of August” sets that tone immediately as the opening track. It opens on piano, which already shifts the ground slightly, but it’s the way it unfolds that really lands. Nothing about this track feels resolved. The writing circles sobriety, relapse, and the idea of trying to be better, but it never settles into anything clean. It feels like catching yourself mid-thought rather than arriving at one, even the seasonal imagery reinforces that sense of something slipping rather than something finished. When the instrumentation expands with the layered vocals and sudden brass, it doesn’t lift the track; it weighs it down.
“Doors” and “American Cars” follow that same thread, the guitar comes back, and the musical arrangements feel fuller, but there is still that distance running underneath everything. Trying to reach someone and not fully getting there, wanting a connection but never quite holding onto it. Even when the sound opens up, the writing pulls it inward.
As the album progresses, it leans further into that weight rather than pulling away from it.
“Downfall” and “Paid Time Off” sit closer to the sound people can very quickly recognise as Kahan, but the writing continues to cut deeper. There is less comfort in these tracks; opening up is not framed as something healing; it is something that can be used against you. It explores how growing up is not romantic, it is about things ending, people leaving and distance becoming permanent.
“Paid Time Off” stands out in particular. It takes something that should feel simple, rest and stepping back, and turns it into something loaded with guilt. Like, even slowing down and taking a step back from everything has to be justified. Lyrics like “people grow up and they move away” land with a quiet finality, not dramatic but just inevitable, which somehow makes the line hit harder than anything else. It doesn’t show distance as something explosive, just something that happens gradually until there is nothing left to hold onto.
That tension peaks in “Willing and Able”, which feels like the most emotionally exposed track on the record. It is messy in a way that feels overly intentional. Arguments that go in constant circles and honesty that only shows up when everything else has broken down. The sense that closeness only truly exists through conflict, and underneath all of it, there is still that want to understand someone and to be understood back. But it never quite reaches that stage and that is what makes this track land the most.
Even when the album shifts outward again, like on “Dashboard”, that restlessness does not go anywhere. Leaving becomes physical, but it doesn’t actually change anything; it shows that you carry everything with you.
The final stretch is where the album really settles into what Kahan is trying to convey with this record.
“Porch Light” reframes everything by stepping outside of the perspective of Kahan. This track is written from his mother’s point of view and it pulls the focus back to the people watching all of this happen from the outside of the story Kahan tells throughout his albums. It adds a different type of weight to everything that comes before it.
From there, the album moves towards something quieter but not necessarily removing the weight of the previous songs. “Headed North” and “We Go Way Back” feel like attempts to orient yourself again, not perfectly by any means, but honestly.
“All Them Horses” is one of the most striking moments here; it stretches the album’s themes out into something bigger: guilt, displacement, and distance. While still feeling completely personal underneath it.
“Dan” closes everything in a way that feels grounded. It strips things back to friendship and memory, along with the kind of moments that do not feel important until they are all you have left to hold onto. The mention of Carlos in this track lands quietly but carries weight, tying this moment back to earlier parts of his catalogue and reinforcing how much of his writing is built on his history rather than isolated ideas. It speaks to how often Kahan returns to the same memories and people, not to repeat them but to understand them differently over time.
What makes The Great Divide work as well as it does is that it never attempts to turn any of this into something neat or romanticised. It does not offer closure and it doesn’t try to recreate what came before. It just stays in the middle of it all, in the distance between versions of yourself, between people and places.
If Stick Season was about being stuck, this is about realising that moving on is not as simple as leaving. It follows you and shows up in ways you do not expect.
And that is exactly why The Great Divide lands as strongly as it does.
LISTEN TO THE GREAT DIVIDE HERE:
Will
I've always loved writing, but music and pop culture gave me something to write about. I've been fascinated by the cultrual impact of music for years and I love bringing those topics to light.
