The Canadian r&b singer’s new heartfelt breakup-themed
album is a departure from his typically loveless sex anthems. With the
exception of ‘Heartless’ – which is more confessions of a manslut (although in
the context of the album, it could be a way of beating himself up over the
cause of the breakup) – most of these songs carry a sense of pained infatuation.
I always wanted to hear more love songs from Abel. It’s a shame that it’s taken
a breakup to bring these feelings out of him.
Of course, The Weeknd is too cool to get overly soppy – and so
there’s still a lot of sex on this record to counterbalance the lyrics about love. Some of it is genuinely quite witty
such as ‘futuristic sex give her Philip K Dick’ on ‘Snowchild’, while
some of it is a bit unnecessary such as the whimpered ‘fuuuckiiiing’ in ‘Repeat
After Me’, which could have otherwise been a sweet MJ-style ballad. And then
there’s ‘Escape to LA’, which is basically a chance to boast about his cars and
money before singing ‘got everything I wanted/ but I’d be nothing without
you’. Personally, I’d have preferred a cheesy ballad than generic
Drake-style braggadocio.
The glossy eighties synths make for a stylish backdrop,
however the songs are generally slower and less diverse than they were on Starboy.
There are a few brilliant uptempo numbers like ‘Blinding Lights’ and some
creative tracks like ‘Hardest to Love’, which mixes drum and bass with twinkling
woozy keys, but there are also tracks like uninspired trap number ‘Heartless’
and exhaustingly slow closer ‘Until I Bleed Out’.
It’s refreshing to hear a more emotional album from The
Weeknd and the Stranger-Things-style synths are pretty fun. In fact, I wouldn’t
have minded an entire album of lovelorn synthpop bangers. Instead, we get tired hip hop tropes such as materialistic bragging and trap beats thrown in that dampen the emotional power and energy.
★★★☆☆TRACK TASTER: