As this self-isolation period kicks in, think of poor Abel Tesfaye, the Canadian singer who, as The Weeknd, usually spends his songs whizzing around city streets in expensive cars, taking staggering quantities of drugs and having sex with a large number of interchangeable cover girls.
For us normals, his fourth album offers a particularly dark form of escapism during the great lock-in.
It turns out the single Blinding Lights, a glorious blast of airpunching Eighties synthpop that is currently No1 in the UK for the fifth week, was a bit of a false start. It’s one of a handful of collaborations with veteran Swedish hit machine Max Martin that are notable for their immediately memorable choruses and, in the case of In Your Eyes, an unapologetically cheesy sax solo.
However, elsewhere, Tesfaye’s in a bit of a fug. The big lyrical picture is this: he’s had a break-up, gone back to his old druggy, womanising ways, and is miserable about it. “Wastin’ all my time out living my fantasties,” he sings on the tortured title track over washes of shadowy synths. Among his problems on the stark ballad Snowchild, an autobiographical tale of his rise through Toronto’s R&B scene, is the fact that he has a $20 million house he’s never lived in.
Especially this week, the urge to scream, “Get some perspective mate!” is overwhelming. Perhaps After Hours’ retro electronic sound does have a bleak vibe that suits the times, but only if you block out the words.
