The Weeknd: Kiss Land – review

Abel Tesfaye makes his major-label debut following a trilogy of self-released albums, and as before, this is glossy neo-soul and cloud rap, with the weed smoke replaced by a sigh into a bowl of cocaine. He doesn't so much gaze at his navel as have a stare-out contest with it, and it's often repellent, especially on the spectacularly boring and sexist title track ("Close your mouth, I just want to hear your body talk"). Killer hooks might transform his singular subject, "the loneliness of filling every need", into a perversely seductive portrait of ennui, but Tesfaye has always been a middling songwriter. Nevertheless, there are some heartstopping moments, including the crack in his voice during Love in the Sky's coda as he tries to wrest control from another faceless woman, and Belong to the World triggers dizzying cognitive dissonance: utterly joyous in its Portishead-sampling beauty, disgusting in its simultaneous desire to "embrace", "mistreat" and "domesticate" a lover.