Short Review: The Weeknd

After his previous full-length album, ‘After Hours’ from 2020, The Weeknd drops a hot bomb in the form of his latest piece of art – Dawn FM. We had a chance to listen to it and tell you that it’s certainly going to stay at the top of your recent searches for the next few months at least!

Imagine you’re on a long drive and listening to the radio, and suddenly you hear the ominous but weirdly comforting voice of the RJ (yes, it’s Jim Carrey) saying – “You are now listening to 103.5 Dawn FM. You’ve been in the dark for way too long. It’s time to walk into the light and accept your fate with open arms. Scared? Don’t worry. We’ll be there to hold your hand and guide you through this painless transition.” And a beautiful transition it is!

A mix of his club-thumping bravado in songs like ‘Take My Breath’, ‘Sacrifice’ and ‘Gasoline’ combined with some trademark desperate boy-ish vulnerability in songs like ‘How Do I Make You Love Me?’, ‘Is There Someone Else?’, ‘Starry Eyes’ and ‘Best Friends’ makes ‘Dawn FM’ quite a dynamic journey filled with awkward questions and smooth falsettos to keep you interested throughout the 16 song album spanning approximately 52 minutes.

Overall, you will notice and love that the music is highly synth-driven and is a real sonic treat for those with their ears plugged into music production. The Weeknd has handled the production himself along with Oneohtrix Point Never, who has worked on many of the songs and additionally features the Max Martin, Oscar Holter, Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafia as well. Apart from these, the crème-de-la-crème of production, the album also features guest cameos from biggies like Lil Wayne and Tyler, the Creator.

The most outstanding little thing about ‘Dawn FM’ however, is that, intended to be flowing like a radio show or channel, the Radio DJ or RJ is none other than legendary funny-man Jim Carrey, who at times, is anything but! Especially in the well-written outro narration, it just make one contemplate back over the last 2 years of this lingering pandemic (which is still trying to make a third comeback as we speak), he aptly asks, “It’s time to look back on the things you thought you owned, do you remember them well? Were you high or just stoned? And how many grudges did you take to your grave? When you weren’t liked or followed, how did you behave? Was it often a dissonant chord you were strumming? Were you ever in tune with the song life was humming?”

Putting aside the literally aged album cover, which reflects what many feel like as they scrape through this weird twist that collective human life has taken in this pandemic, The Weeknd’s voice sounds like a beacon of hope to end this incessant living nightmare.

You can listen to ‘Dawn FM’ below: