One Direction, still feeding off of the international success of their first album, Up All Night, released their second album, Take Me Home, on Nov. 12. The album debuted at #1 on the British, American and Australian charts, and even went gold in The Netherlands and platinum in Sweden within the first week of its release.

Take Me Home features two of the band’s most recent hit singles – “Live While We’re Young” and “Little Things”. “Little Things” peaked inside the top ten in every country it charted in, and “Live While We’re Young” recorded the highest ever one-week opening sales figure in the United States for a song not by an American artist.

This album deserves every ounce of the success it’s reeling in. Take Me Home is head and shoulders above Up All Night in terms of vocals and lyrics. The songs give off the sense that this is what One Direction wants to be, as seen in the more upbeat songs like “Magic”, “Kiss You” and “I Would”, and the slower, acoustic ones like “Truly Madly Deeply” and “Over Again”.

On Take Me Home, One Direction had the opportunity to work with some of England’s most esteemed songwriters, such as British music sensation Ed Sheeran, and Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones and Dougie Poynter of McFly. All five members of the band’s names were listed as writers on five out of the 13 songs on the album, which is impressive for a band this big.

On Up All Night, the songs were mainly sung by band members Harry Styles, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik, only giving Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson five solos each throughout the entire album. On Take Me Home, Horan and Tomlinson’s voices are present in every single song – something that makes me very happy.

Overall, Take Me Home is a huge success in my eyes (and ears). One Direction is known as the ‘biggest boy band in the world’ right now, and this album is sure to help them keep that title.