This week in music marketing news, the Weeknd branded his new release, ‘My Dear Melancholy’, a ‘six track album’ as opposed to an EP. Whatever.
Regardless of how it has been packaged, the result is a finely tuned collection of dark, brooding R&B that attempts - and often succeeds - in revisiting singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye’s earlier work in its morose and smoky libidinousness.
Call Out My Name, for example, is an epic ballad that lets a remarkable vocal from Tesfaye soar above a silky Radiohead-esque piano and some watery synths.
The song was co-written with producer Frank Dukes and minimal electro superstar Nicolas Jaar, whose input has surely resulted in its extremely terse arrangement and highly complimentary vocal layering.
Ethereal reverb abounds on ‘My Dear Melancholy’ and while this is frequently used (by lesser mortals) to paint over the cracks of weak production, there is little of that on show here. Similarly, Try Me is a superbly withdrawn piece of music that has a great deal of tonal variation despite its rigid, samey chords. Once again the production is notable, and Mike WiLL Made-It’s input has given the song a decidedly trap feel with basic 808 drum samples and chunky autotune.
But this is also where the song (and album) struggles a little. Tesfaye has gone for broke in securing the services of blue-chip producers, with Skrillex, Gesaffelstein and Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Cristo all appearing. The net result is that the album lacks the single minded fervour of the work it is clearly harking back to: the mixtape ‘Trilogy’ and 2013’s ‘Kiss Land’.
It is neither the desperate romantic gloom that broke Tesfaye, nor the druggy grooves that took him platinum. His voice, however, remains extraordinary.
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