Released in March 2020, After Hours, The Weeknd’s fourth album, made the planet dance to the rhythm of his funk-pop “eighties” hymns (Blinding Lights, Heartless…), at one of the most weighty moments of the XXIe century. A little less than two years later, the end of the tunnel is not really in sight. And we first wonder if the Canadian of Ethiopian origin, born Abel Makkonen Tesfaye on February 16, 1990, has not renounced his lightness this time, listening to a pseudo-radio host welcome us in the introduction of Dawn FM. This fifth opus was released on Friday January 7, a few days following the surprise announcement of its publication on streaming sites, the “physical” version of the disc being scheduled for January 28.
Against the backdrop of a persistent pandemic, the concept might seem anxiety-provoking. Because this DJ voice wants to be that of a kind of ferryman of the Styx supposed to accompany in the beyond the singer, made up as an old man on the cover of the album, and his listeners. This narrator being played by Jim Carrey, comic demon of American cinema, friend and compatriot of Tesfaye, we suspect that the crossing will not be too tragic. Especially when the one who played The Mask and the Grinch promises « a painless transition to this followinglife ».
The Weeknd makes him keep his word. Polished and chromed like a convertible more than like a hearse, Dawn FM offers a comfortable purgatory. Faithful in this to the pop perfectionism of this former marginal of the R’n’B experiment, who since 2015 has become (the album Beauty Behind the Madness) one of the biggest purveyors of hits on the contemporary scene.
Luxury crafts
We also find in this album most of the ingredients that had made the success ofAfter Hours. In particular, the bouncy melodies of synthesizers borrowed from the synth-pop and new wave of the 1980s, fused with more modern electro and soul-funk marked by the voice and ecumenical ideal of Michael Jackson.
Not sure to find here a single with such monstrous potential as Blinding Lights, nor even that Starboy Where I Feel It Coming, the songs that the Canadian had co-produced, in 2016, with Daft Punk. Nonetheless, Tesfaye’s luxury craftsmanship remains a war machine. As evidenced by an album attack where, following some spatial volutes supposed to evoke ether, Gasoline gets carried away to the rhythm of an electronic as percussive as it is melodic.
Driving force behind The Weeknd’s pop demands since 2015, the Swedish producer duo formed by Max Martin and Oscar Holter also guarantees the performance of the single. Take My Breath, the only one of these titles released in 2021. Adorned with an electric guitar loop suggested by other Scandinavian accomplices, the Swedish House Mafia, Sacrifice stands out as one of the most danceable tracks on the album. When, built on a dry guitar riff, the dapper Less Than Zero, He also owes a lot to all these ABBA descendants.
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