Niall Horan reveals plans for the album

Sorry guys, Niall Horan won’t release an album until “early summer” next year.

Yesterday the musician dropped a bombshell on us all when he released his first solo track since One Direction went on hiatus nine months ago and boy, was it worth the wait.

But if you were hoping ‘This Town’ signalled the release of a full, 12-track album, or a mini EP, or even a second B-side, then soz. To be fair, the Irish hunk has spent a lot of time playing golf lately.

Confirming his album won’t be ready this side of Christmas, he said: “I wouldn’t say it was this year, (This Town) is probably the only song that’s fully finished. I’ve been writing songs but I’ll turn them into tracks later on so I still have to record the guitars and the drums, that sort of thing.

“It’s still early doors, but you can expect something, probably like end of spring, early summer next year.”

Brightside? 2017 is looking good.

The 23-year-old star also confessed he wanted to shock his fans by releasing a full track out of the blue rather than be “boring” and tease snippets of his new music.

He added: ” I wanted to do it this way, I didn’t want marketing plans or teasers, it just gets a bit boring after a while. So I was like, alright let’s just drop it and get the reaction.”

Niall admitted it felt “incredible” hearing ‘This Town’ on radio for the first time, reminding him of when One Direction released their debut single.

He said: “Today reminded me of when we first released ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ – hearing the song on the radio for the first time was incredible.”

Meanwhile, we should be thanking the Irish crooner for giving us our first taste of solo One Direction (sorry, Zayn obvs doesn’t count) and Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, and Liam Payne all rushed to congratulate their pal on Thursday.

Liam, 23, was the first to message Niall publicly, writing: “@NiallOfficial good luck boss give him all your support huge day for him proud of you boss,” and Louis, 24, soon followed by tweeting: “Feeling super proud @NiallOfficial . You sound great ! Great to see you at your bday bash!!”It wasn’t long before Harry, 22, also messaged Niall, writing: “@NiallOfficial Ahhh, a lovely tune my friend. Congratulations. H.”

Niall also gave us hope that the band will reunite sooner rather than later, telling Capital FM: “Basically for the foreseeable we’re doing our own thing, we still keep in touch all the time, it’s very much still there. There’s no doubt about it, I don’t know when, it could be a year, it could be two, but it’ll definitely happen.”