The Weeknd has done it again. Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, is an R&B artist from Canada. In his sixth studio album, The Weeknd has made an instant classic album that fans have been waiting on for four years. He teased his new album, After Hours, by releasing three singles since November. 

The album itself is amazing to say the least. In the past, The Weeknd addresses themes of love and relationships in his music by singing over R&B slow beats. He continues to sing about the same topics but over more trap and pop beats on the new album. For example a song where you want to get up and dance like “Blinding Lights” actually has very sad and dark lyrics like, “I can’t see clearly when you are gone.” 

His ability to sing over these beats allows this album to have almost no skips at all. This album has so many capabilities that you could lay in bed and cry to it or you could be out and for lack of a better word, vibe to it. 

Some notable songs off this album include the title track, “After Hours.” This song is about Abel’s heartbreaks as he sings about them over a dark production. He sings about these relationships and missing them over this underlying 808 beat to give off a dark vibe.

A notable two-song run is “Hardest to Love” straight into “Scared to Live”. The production on both of these songs are amazing as it is a dark, pop beat but Abel is singing extremely sad lyrics about his relationships. “Scared to Live” really gets into your mind and the sad lyrics make you want to text every person you ever had even a crush on. If you are in the mood to cry then I wholeheartedly recommend that two-song run.

My favorite song of this album has to be either “After Hours”, “Scared to Live”, or “In Your Eyes”. Like I said before, the production and lyrics on the first two songs are just so amazing that I have to keep on replaying those songs. On “In Your Eyes”, he changes it up a bit and sings over a jazz beat. The whole second half of the song he is singing about a girl he misses while a saxophone plays in the back and that’s just amazing to me. 

Overall, this album is amazing and is definitely going to contend for the Album of the Year. The Weeknd continues his legacy of an amazing artist and he cheers up the world during a time of despair and fear. My go to songs of this album are going to be “Scared to Live” or “In Your Eyes”. 

Key Tracks: Hardest to Love, Scared to Live, Alone Again, Faith, After Hours, In Your Eyes, and Too Late. 

Overall Score: 8.5/10