Sex, Drugs and Passion. The Weeknd’s House of Balloons

In the past two weeks music sites have exploded into a frenzy of Canadian R&B. Beginning as hushed whispers and sideways glances, lovers of murky grunge to 60s throwbacks have guiltily passed around House of Balloons, the brainchild of  the shadow-hiding Abel Tesfaye. Going under the pseudonym The Weeknd, Tesfaye has cultivated nothing short of an army of disciples in his relatively recent rise to blog fame. Releasing the nine-song mixtape for free (available here) may at first have seemed like an admission of a failure, lack of confidence or just plain impatience, but the hype that it has created cannot be bought.

A discarded vowel, a heavily guitar-driven sound, and lyrics that make you question whether sex is anything more than cold pleasure culminate in a surprisingly different R&B mixtape. From the off, Tesfaye indicates what this record is all about – the distant drum beat and dubstep wobble of the opening track ‘High For This‘ mixes with layered vocals that part harmonise and part contrast, achieving a strong start.

While the record isn’t wholly R&B, the themes that The Weeknd spins certainly are. The lusty ‘What You Need‘ sounds like a hard Prince track dipped in a soft porn aesthetics, while the drug-drenched ‘Coming Down‘ retells a Human Trafficesque post-rave sex scene.

The stand out songs, however, offer more than repetitive connotations associated with the genre.The emotive ‘Wicked Games‘ conjures an image of a failing relationship being abandoned by a man looking for one night of pseudo-love and passionate sex. The thumping drum beat mixes delicately with a distorted guitar riff which encircles the lyrics  in half desperation, half depression. Tesfaye’s autotuned vocals call out to his partner of the night:- ‘Tell me you love me/(Only for tonight)/Even though you don’t love me’ while the bass pulses. A similarly addictive mix is found in ‘Loft Music‘, a quicker flow of spoken and sung lyrics with a basic electric drum sequence. The most striking verse of which offers swinging etiquette in film analogy:- ‘Eddie Murphy shit/Yeah, we trade places/Rehearse lines with them/and then we fuck faces’.

The pinnacle of the record, however, is the closing track. While the entire mixtape swells and undulates with brash lyrics and instrumentation that encourages the body to move, ‘The Knowing’ (video below) is of a different gene. Its choral backdrop and echoing snare sets up an encouraging foundation for the clear voice of Tesfaye to cut across. A slower moving pace and more heart-felt lyrics (which seem to contradict The Weeknd’s obsession with loveless sex) describe an unearthed affair offers more in the way of a truly rounded song. The epic choruses repeat the mantra ‘I know everything’ in a simplistic yet effective show of emotion, while the protagonist keeps a strong face in the lyrics ‘You probably thought that break my heart/You probably thought that you make me cry/But baby it’s okay/I swear it’s okay’. A potent mix of feeling and strong musicianship makes the fact that it is the last track a shame – this song leaves you wanting more.

And perhaps that’s why The Weeknd place it last – the House of Balloons is not the end of this solo project, but just the beginning of a potentially very successful career. Well, this reviewer hopes at least.

The Weeknd – The Knowing