It's very clear that the creative force that is Abel Tesfaye is not done. Whether or not his days as The Weeknd are as numbered as he's suggested, his new album Hurry Up Tomorrow truly feels like his final statement under the moniker. And it's a massive one, which is probably the key observation to get out of the way. A near-hour-and-a-half runtime glimmers with larger-than-life production courtesy of Abel himself, Oneohtrix Point Never, Mike Dean, Max Martin, Metro Boomin, and many other collaborators. Its transitions are epic, the melodrama is at lunar stadium levels of grandiosity, and it feels like the Toronto superstar took his entire career's sonic, topical, and philosophical evolution and filtered it through his earned lens as one of music's biggest names right now.
All this rested on Hurry Up Tomorrow's shoulders well before its release last week. The Weeknd's fanbase hoped that this would close the After Hours Til Dawn trilogy with not just a gargantuan synth odyssey, but with the real emotional heft behind it that the glossy presentation can sometimes downplay. Is that gloss the case here? Well, sometimes, but more rarely than some previous albums. Fortunately, this new LP wastes no time in outlining its themes and indicating its behind-the-boards versatility with the opener "Wake Me Up" featuring Justice. By the time it wraps up with the piano-bolstered title track, you've gone through a whole career... Perhaps a whole life. What truly sets this record apart from his other works is not just its ambition - despite some missteps here and there - but how it subverts what we expected from this trilogy and career trajectory in the first place.
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Hurry Up Tomorrow: Another Synth Expedition And Then Some
Some of the most apparent sonic markers of this subversion are The Weeknd's new tools in the box on Hurry Up Tomorrow, which the Anitta-assisted Brazilian funk cut "São Paulo" previewed in high-octane fashion. "Cry For Me" also plays with that rhythm, "Opening Night" is a welcome reprieve of cloud rap-esque haze, the hiss-filled and jazzy section of "Given Up On Me" is one of his most intimate performances in a while, and "Timeless" brings back the simple but intoxicating songwriting that he rose to the top with, plus one of his closest contemporary collaborators thanks to a light Playboi Carti verse. Most other tracks feel plucked out of the 34-year-old's many eras, but the cleanly cinematic production in the '80s synth lineage that he fully embraced post-Starboy adapts each diversion to its overall sonic vision.
However, synth worship can get in the way of these more singular moments, such as an interruption of some warped production treatment on "Big Sleep" with the legendary Giorgio Moroder and a predictable fizzle-out to the earthy and slightly 2000s-inspired "Niagara Falls." Transitions on Hurry Up Tomorrow help out a lot with this, though. The Weeknd keeps up an exciting and dynamic flow throughout the tracklist in a few different ways. A few seamless mixes really make cuts like the pulsating "Open Hearts" feel part of a larger whole, and as the album goes on, it seems like we're almost working backwards from Abel's last project to his first one... Put a pin in that. Even more straightforward cuts like the dreamy "Drive" or the funky bassline on "I Can't Wait To Get There" feel like perfected and fully realized versions of songs he's tackled before.
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The Weeknd Is As Vulnerable As Ever
Furthermore, that track in particular revisits some of The Weeknd's lyrical themes throughout Hurry Up Tomorrow, such as his harsh upbringing and trying to mend his industry rifts. While few lines here will come off as surprising given his past work, it does draw a much more compelling, direct, and well-rounded connection between the themes of romantic disillusionment, drug addiction, and religious redemption that he's always played with, especially in this trilogy. Sure, the writing lacks some specificity and uniqueness throughout, but standout narratives like "Baptized In Fire" really bring that paranoia and submission to life. "Give Me Mercy" lands as probably the best summation of this album's thesis, as it asks a higher power for forgiveness while accepting that there are no partial deaths that can bring about a true rebirth.
Contrast and juxtaposition also drive Hurry Up Tomorrow's overall mission as The Weeknd's curtain call, such as the opposing but similarly cumbersome feelings of both Los Angeles and Toronto on "Take Me Back To LA." The production can feel as daunting, relentless, and dangerously heavenly as his celebrity feels performance-wise, particularly when its more jagged approach on "Red Terror" beautifully pays tribute to his mother. Paired with the mostly blunt displays of fatalist gravitas in the lyrics, song structures like the chilling "Reflections Laughing" with Travis Scott and Florence Welch and the overwhelming Lana Del Rey-assisted "The Abyss" become much larger sonic statements on loneliness. On the topic of features, we'll say it: Future has never sang better than when he erupts on "Enjoy The Show." It's one of many moments where the themes and performances elevate the sound and vice versa, creating a very visceral journey throughout the album.
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The Future Of Abel Tesfaye
That's certainly one way to describe The Weeknd: visceral. He never shied away from the skeletons in his closet. Hurry Up Tomorrow makes it clear that, no matter how hard the XO mogul tried to place them in different eras, they still came back to haunt him every single time, and that might be exactly what he felt when he couldn't sing at SoFi Stadium back in 2022. He references it multiple times on this album, most overtly on "Without A Warning."
And as Abel goes through this record, he keeps calling back to his early days until HUT's closer loops back into "High For This," House Of Balloons' opener. The answer for this alter ego was never redemption, rebirth, or repentance. It was a grand and fearless death, the only thing that could break a cycle so its driver could forge a new artistic path. If you trap all the skeletons in a loop, leave them at your highest peak, and acknowledge that how they changed you will not define you, they will not sink you into your past woes any longer. The Weeknd is forever. More importantly, so is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye.
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