First Impressions of the Weeknd’s New Album ‘After Hours’

It’s finally time to see what that the Weeknd’s mysterious, crimson suit-wearing, bloodied character has been up to. After months of late-night TV appearances, single releases, and other promo, his fourth studio album, After Hours, has arrived.

The 14-song project finds Abel Tesfaye alone, with no guest features. Limiting outside distractions, he invites us deeper into the world he’s been building for the past decade. And, much like the reality we currently find ourselves in, it’s a dark and somewhat paranoid universe. In what shouldn’t come as a big surprise to longtime Weeknd fans, this is full of debauchery and drugs, but there are also hints at an increasingly self-reflective and mature Abel.

Let’s get into it. Quarantined inside our New York City apartments, the Complex Music staff had plenty of time to run this thing back a few times since it dropped at midnight. After some initial spins (and a few frenzied Slack messages), we’ve put together a list of our early takeaways. Here are our first impressions of the Weeknd’s new album, After Hours.

This is a very well-sequenced album. Before After Hours dropped, I wrote about my hopes that this would be a big concept album that closely adhered to a storyline. While that didn’t ultimately come to fruition, Abel does pull off a cohesive project that flows together extremely well. Of course, it helps that there are no skips on this thing. None! Delivering all the vocals himself, he guides us through an album that starts out submerged and synth-heavy, before soaring to a danceable, energetic pop ceiling, then settling back down to a mellow finish. The whole thing follows an easy curve that keeps us engaged without any jarring surprises or glaring missteps. You can feel confident pressing play and letting this ride all the way to the finish.