The Weeknd: Kiss Land

If it ain't broke, why fix it? No surprise that Abel Tesfaye's debut album proper doesn't depart too much from a template the Ethiopian-Canadian first crafted with his three 2011 mixtapes. Those after-hours, post-party symphonies of ennui, melancholy and wistfulness form the musical moodboard for the trials and tribulations experienced on Kiss Land. Having previously hugged the shadows to keep his anonymity, Tesfaye is now happy to be on the album sleeve and have that falsetto of his placed higher in the mix. While the lyrical concerns are similar, Tesfaye has gone deeper and darker. There are nods to Portishead (Belong to the World) and his own back-catalogue (Kiss Land continues the House of Balloons throughline). But it's the starkness and menace of the overall mood that really strikes a note. theweeknd.com Download: Belong to the World, Kiss Land