Dawn FM - A Panoramic Display of The Weeknd's Musical Grandeur (Album Review)

“If the last record is the After Hours of the Night, then The Dawn is coming.”

With essentially no rollout and latching its debut to a few capitalised tweets, the Weeknd opened his fifth studio album, Dawn FM to the world. Millions around the world stayed caffeinated to ensure their virtual attendance at the livestream listening party of the album, and within a few minutes it was trending everywhere. Dawn FM is quite possibly the most consistent and daring The Weeknd has ever been. It's a transfixing sonic tribute to science fiction, the 80s and Michael Jackson, and although the fusion of his Trilogy days and pop appeal isn’t meshed the way it is in After Hours, we see Abel truly in his element here, having defined the outline of the music HE wants to create.

Dawn FM is nothing we’ve ever seen before from Abel Tesfaye. It takes the form of a purgatorial radio station in an unknown galactic cosmos after the ego death of his After Hours alter. The mysterious entity we knew from Trilogy up till After Hours rises from the ashes in a different body here, his musical niche has been rebranded - we keep the psychedelic trance of his former creations but there’s less depressed trip-hop, we’re introduced to light, dreamy vaporwave aesthetics, wrapped in romantic, soulful ballads like Out of Time or indie-funk joints like Less Than Zero. There’s an air of attempted happiness within the groovy beats and sanguine lyrics. Abel’s at the peak of stardom, there’s nothing he hasn’t achieved, nothing he cannot buy, connections he doesn’t have – the only mission now is healing the inner 21-year-old who used hedonism and debauchery as a pain suppressant.

He explores the friction between daytime music and nighttime ambiance. It’s stylish, profound and high spirited, engendered with introspection and concerns about the afterlife. He masters the art of variation on this record; the entire first half could qualify for a Stranger Things soundtrack with icy dancefloor fuel, while the second half puts more emphasis on R&B downtempo love letters that marry Prince (the album) with Floral Shoppe.

The most noticeable thing about Gasoline is the twisted low-pitch English cadence he dons while delivering a chilling spoken word/rap amalgam about his fear of a spiritual armaggedon, though the foreign diction is strange, it caresses the beat and adds a magnetism to the track that makes it crazily repeatable.

Abel transports us into this post-apocalyptic fantasia of abandoned theme parks and FNAF diners. This mysterious realm is fostered by the potential of a bleak 2022, but he offers us a little bit of hope with the soft glam rock and new wave club bops. Dawn FM isn’t for the Trilogy ultranationalists who cling on to the slither of a possibility that we’ll get a High For This part 2, its for the zealots of nostalgia and those who do everything on impulse. It’s almost impossible not to picture yourself speeding on a late night with Take My Breath playing in the background, it’s liquid synths and spiralling “oohs and aahs” that oscillate from one ear to another ringing from the car radio. Sacrifice is a real standout, Abel and his cohort of contributors blend sharp riffs that sound torn out of MJ’s Thriller (it’s actually a guitar loop from Alicia Myers’ I Want to Thank You), some glossy electronic keyboard, then overlays the synths we all know and love. The final product is this killer cinematic song which climaxes all the way through.

Even tracks that at first listen resemble the “classic” Weeknd style get skewed by the colourful buzz that flecks the entire album, like Best Friends and Is There Someone Else. The material he sources expands on the 80s filter of After Hours; Out of Time pays homage to old school Japanese city-pop, sampling Midnight Pretenders by Tomoko Aran. A large portion of the buttery second half sounds fitting for a spontaneous karaoke visit with friends: I Heard You’re Married is practically tailored to be belted out in a drunken, heartbroken daze even if its subject matter is Abel having an affair with a married woman. Lil Wayne’s verse can easily be rendered for a PEGI-12 radio edit, but the dirty version graces us with The Weeknd’s stamp of erotica, which is much more diluted and candied throughout Dawn FM.

Although, the retro lining of the album does make a lot of sense considering its roster of big-name pop nobility. It’s co-produced by one of the vaporwave pioneers himself, Daniel Lopatin a.k.a Oneohtrix Point Never, who makes his presence known with an adept manipulation of old school synths and clipped beats. Quincy Jones acts as the divider between the two tones of the project, telling us a tale about his mother’s battle with mental illness on top of a starry, blissful instrumental of diminishing chords, then there’s Max Martin, the man behind some of the most successful and iconic pop tracks on earth. Although most tracks have the potential to become chart monoliths like Blinding Lights (Less than Zero being a prime example) the overarching narrative gives them all a sense of individuality that means there is a lack of “filler”, every song serves a purpose.

Jim Carrey, who started the album with the intro to the acid-tipped project, finishes it off with some ethereal narration on Phantom Regret. It gets uncomfortably philosophical and introspective, a little pessimistic at times: “You don’t reach for bliss, God knows life is chaos.”

With this poem the image of illuminated city streets, smoke-filled clubs and sequined suits of Dawn FM begins to dissolve, but the existential dread and need for more euphoric techno does not. Whether his aged visage on the cover art or the extended metaphor of reaching the light at the end of the tunnel is literal and Abel Tesfaye is hinting at withdrawing The Weeknd, Dawn FM has given 2022 an incredible start for us album aficionados.