Collapse submenu. Menu Cart 0. Sold out. Echoes of Silence is the third mixtape by Canadian recording artist The Weeknd, released December 21, This release followed his Polaris Music Prize-nominated debut release House of Balloons and his second mixtape Thursday, both released earlier the same year. The dragging beats, washes of synthesiser and eclectic musical references — chillwave and crunk hip-hop, Aaliyah and France Gall — somehow contrive to sound not just eerie and desolate but cosseting as well, inexorably drawing the listener into a deeply troubling world.
Echoes of Silence is his third album in nine months, and it might be the most troubling of the lot. The latter isn't the first Weeknd song about using drink and drugs to coerce an unwilling woman into group sex, but it's perhaps the most horrible — rhythm clattering, the sweetness of the melody corrupted by the Auto-Tune effect that causes Tesfaye's voice to continually speed up and slow down. After it ends, it haunts you in the same way as a newspaper's graphic description of a crime or a disaster.
But more disturbing still are the songs that surround them, because they seem to cloud Tesfaye's intention. With their talk of meteoric rises and bullish predictions of continued success The Fall and Same Old Song seem not to be about a character, but Tesfaye himself. The closing title track , a reverb-heavy piano ballad, features a protagonist dismissing yet another corrupted and distraught female "you're such a masochist" , but it's mired in self-pity: "Don't go home … don't leave my little life.
But taken as the conclusion to an interlinked trilogy of albums, there's a slight but nagging suspicion that Tesfaye is genuinely trying to elicit some kind of sympathy — he's certainly going all out on the impassioned vocal front — and that he thinks he's raising an important point about the complex nature of victimhood. Those four minutes of unguarded sparsity -- Tesfaye's quivering falsetto and a funereal piano-- unwind 's most exciting, conflicting, and self-mythologizing musical universe.
On closer "Echoes of Silence", is Tesfaye's protagonist finally unraveling or merely beginning anew? That his loosely narrative album trilogy seems like it could begin and end at any one of its entry points seems to hint at the latter.
It's a chillingly cyclical picture of decay and self-immolation marking the Weeknd's greatest triumph: an emotional thread so confusing we can love, hate, fear, and be revolted all at once.
Tesfaye's recycling of previous lyrics, melodies, and ideas on Echoes of Silence is bound to give fresh ammo to fairweather fans eager to hurl accusations of diminishing returns and unimaginative retreads at the rising Toronto star. Echoes may lack the surprise-and-delight factor of House of Balloons , but it's a strong finish to Tesfaye's first trilogy, providing just enough closure to satisfy, and just enough mystery left to entice us back for the next round. Skip to content Search query All Results.
Pitchfork is the most trusted voice in music. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Open share drawer.
0コメント