The second single from his imminent album The Great Divide, “Porch Light” spotlights that Noah Kahan is certainly not as sorry as he was in the lead single. There is a sonic consistency that makes this latest release a promising expansion of the landscape of this next record. It cannot be denied that Kahan has held onto visualisation and memory as a core for this album rollout. 

The first line, “I would ask you how you’ve been, it’s all over the internet, but hey I mean you knew that after all,” is reminiscent of “All My Love”, where Kahan begins with “‘How have things been?’ / Well, love, now that you mention it”, pulling listeners straight into the centre of Stick Season, his third studio album. 

This song relies more on the country inflections and twangy guitar seen post-Stick Season. People tend to forget how Kahan used to be an indie-pop guy, and not to suggest he’s strayed very far from his roots, but the country-isms—especially seen here in “Porch Light”—are relatively new. It’s less a shift and more a natural progression—his voice was always made for this kind of music. He slips in and out of falsetto with practiced ease and imbues a deep sense of melancholy with the restrained line “I don’t know, I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m alone.”

That said, this sonic capacity of "Porch Light" is not as remarkable as title track “The Great Divide”, which was spectacular in its sadness. Something in that song makes its desperation memorable—I can’t quite put my finger on it. It could be the simple melody aggrandising the sadness in his voice, or the perfectly repetitive instrumentals letting us focus wholly on his lyrics—but whatever it was, it’s missing in “Porch Light”. Maybe it’s simply that “The Great Divide” came roaring out of the gates after his last album—a tough act to follow. It uncovered a distinct feeling, something you could place: a fear, an apology. “Porch Light” is more ambiguous, and much like its melody, the abstractness simply isn’t as memorable. 

This does not detract from how the song builds on the world established in “The Great Divide”, which I really appreciate. I like how there’s a story being threaded here, and that the person he’s writing to remains a point of contention. It’s interesting to see how the apology in “The Great Divide” festers into resentment, while the longing remains. The ambiguity gives way to the nuances of heartbreak and forgiveness—that oftentimes, when entangled the way they are for Kahan, it’s difficult to know when to turn that porch light off for good. 

Notably, there are four songs in the tracklist between “The Great Divide” and “Porch Light”. I’m curious to see if Kahan will continue with this narrative thread or adopt a more spacious outlook, building a world and letting every emotion interact with one another randomly, jumping from apology to “half-assed half-apolog(ies)” amongst all the songs. This isn’t something he’s particularly known for—having a specific, stylised tracklist—but this could be the beginning.

Paradoxically, loving lead single “The Great Divide” and only liking follow up “Porch Light” has left me more excited than ever for the new album. Kahan knows how to access the difficulty in being the villain in someone’s story and carve it out into one distilled moment, reaching across “The Great Divide” or flicking on the “Porch Light”, hoping they will return.