Noah Kahan – The Great Divide

Most summer albums are framed as carefree, energetic, party-oriented, or nostalgic in a lightweight way. The Great Divide, however, becomes a summer soundtrack emotionally rather than sonically. It’s an album defined less by sound and more by feeling. Noah Kahan’s 21-track fourth studio album, The Great Divide, is impossible to skip through. The album feels both intimate and expansive, weaving together memories of childhood, complicated family relationships, addiction, faith, and the emotional distance that often comes with success.

As someone from Montreal, listening to The Great Divide takes me back to road trips through Vermont’s winding roads surrounded by fall foliage, yet Noah Kahan’s music never feels tied to only one season. Like his earlier work, the album captures both the harshness of long New England winters and the feeling of finally stepping into warmer months after surviving them. There is melancholy throughout the record, but also movement and hope.

A recurring theme on the album is guilt, especially the guilt that comes from not being able to fully protect the people you love despite achieving success. On “Armor of Success,” Kahan reflects on the emotional limits of fame and the realization that accomplishments cannot shield people from pain. Throughout the album, American imagery and cultural references appear constantly: long drives, small towns, distance, highways, and the quiet loneliness that can come with leaving home behind while your world continues to expand.

One of the album’s most vulnerable moments comes in “23,” where Kahan reflects on addiction and the emotional stagnation he experienced early in his career. Even as his life appeared to be moving forward in the public eye, the song captures the feeling of internally standing still while the world passes by.

The standout tracks for me were “Doors,” “Downfall,” “The Great Divide,” “Haircut,” “Dashboard,” “Porch Light,” and “A Fear of Your Own.” “Doors” especially stands out with the lyric, “Have you ever shared some closeness, so exposed, to have it spit back by someone?”, one of the album’s most emotionally raw moments.

This past weekend, the small-town Vermont artist brought that same emotional honesty to the stage of Saturday Night Live. Despite many upbeat instrumentals and catchy hooks across the album, the emotional core of the record shines in vulnerability, grief, nostalgia, and resilience. Overall, The Great Divide feels like an album about surviving change while still trying to hold onto yourself.

Noah Kahan will perform on November 29, 2026, at the Avicii Arena.