Better known as The Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye is a tough artist to digest. While similar in style to his pseudo-mentor (Drake ultimately pushed Tesfaye into the limelight), both focusing on the perils of fame and fortune, Tesfaye pushes it into a whole new world. Not one where all the attention is impacting on your love life and family relationships, but one where fame brings with it a sort of amoral lifestyle.
‘Initiation’, for instance, focuses on Tesfaye using drink and drugs to get a woman to have sex with him. It’s not the first track to focus on this, similar themes ran through his two previous freely released albums. Above the others however, ‘Initiation’ brings with it a real sense of unease and uncomfortableness. His voice seems so sweet and innocent; a boy lost in this mad world of fame, but the clattering rhythms and the frequent use of distortion brings you into this world but of sleazy VIP rooms that aren’t all free champagne and women in various states of undress.
Yet what is more haunting is the difficultly in telling whether or not the Tesfaye he is singing about is in fact himself, or a fictional version of himself. Songs that surround ‘Initiation’ seem to indicate it is he with it documenting his rise to fame and where he wants to go next. The fine line between this fictional or real Tesfaye makes the seedier, uncomfortable songs that much more unsettling.
If this is a character that he is playing, and he’s just sitting back with crumpets watching Countdown, he may need to change his tune soon as there are chances this gimmick, refreshing as it is, may get stale. If it is not a character, but Tesfaye himself engaging in all these sleazy acts, I just have one recommendation; he should probably check his moral compass and stop being a sleaze.
4/5
Recommended download: 'D.D.'
