"This ain't nothing to relate to," Abel Tesfaye croons in a still charmingly boyish voice on "Kiss Land," the title-track to the forthcoming album. Few sentiments uttered by any artist from any genre this year have been as apt or as pitch-perfect as that line. The dark, insular world Tesfaye creates as The Weeknd is hardly relatable, and even less welcoming. During the course of any torrid night in The Weeknd's world: drugs are consumed at a dizzying pace, sex is stripped of any love (becoming a by-product of lust), and Tesfaye's paradigmatic lothario plays host to the most hedonistic party in the neighborhood. In short, Tesfaye's songs evince a waking nightmare that are concerned more with capturing a mood than they are with conveying any sort of truth.
That dynamic is gently upended by a few lines in "Kiss Land" particularly when Tesfaye documents "I went from starin' at the same four walls for 21 years, to seeing the whole world in just 12 months," but honesty has never been his bag, and soon he's off concocting his own wicked elixir of Adderall and alcohol. The music is still coated in the same narcotic industrial R&B haze that made the 2011 trilogy hypnotic and disembodied background vocals ensure this one will haunt your dreams for a while.
All of that serves as an overloaded appetizer for the main-course that is the NSFW music video. Tesfaye's entire video oeuvre so-far can rightly be summed up as: barely masked sex, slowly crumbling relationships, and yes strippers. But all of that pales in comparison to "Kiss Land"s treatment of group sex-scenes that ostensibly take place in Japan and have to be seen to be believed. The naughty bits are all blurred out, but that doesn't make the video anymore endurable, nor do the quick shots of anime cats that taunt the viewer with a promise of innocence that never comes. Perhaps the most disturbing thing of all is Tesfaye who matter-of-factly provides the skin-crawling details. As destructive as the storm can be, it's often the calm you should be wary of and "Kiss Land" perfectly forecasts that malevolent calm.
As of now, Kiss Land has no official release date, but as soon as more info drops you'll hear about it here.
genius
is not inherent, but it is developed through ten thousand hours of
perfecting your craft - See more at:
http://reesenews.org/2011/02/23/critics-corner-reviews-676-lil-b-tracks/10898/#sthash.UmJX1w0H.dpuf
genius
is not inherent, but it is developed through ten thousand hours of
perfecting your craft - See more at:
http://reesenews.org/2011/02/23/critics-corner-reviews-676-lil-b-tracks/10898/#sthash.UmJX1w0H.dpuf
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