Here we go … again: After clutching all the headlines with his much-lauded 2020 album of “After Hours,” Abel Tesfaye stepped into something new and something of reflective prowess. Cleary, Tesfaye simply knows no bounds in terms of exploration, as his fifth album takes off with any pre-warning safety announcements. Harnessed in to a fictional radio station that goes by the name of 103.5 Dawn FM – with Tesfaye’s apt-neighbour Jim Carrey narrating along the way – the album swoons and careens into the plethora of dark and cool Depeche dark-synth pop.
Unlike the tensive, illustrative work of After Hours that somehow puts up a front throughout, Dawn FM is a mature new approach to resolving past mistakes and stepping out from the shadows as a better person.
Accepting fate rather than denying plausibility is a encouraging tact here through the telling of Dawn FM …
“God knows life is chaos but he made one thing true: you gotta unwind your mind, train your soul to align and dance til you find that divine boogaloo. In other words: you gotta be heaven to see heaven. May peace be with you.”
… after all, it is always darkest before dawn. And after dawn, comes a new day.
Familiars feature the poignant, self-reflective Out of Time, the janky guitar-flex of Sacrifice and the incessant bass jabs of Best Friends to the trap drum machine overruse of Don’t Breaky My Heart, the album suffers somewhat in depth as it does in musicality. But it is an ultimatum of sorts – it is one we must get pass through ourselves.
Reflective of his journey, has The Weeknd finally found peace within himself?
mvm. 
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