The Weeknd is gearing up for the ultimate chapter in his After Hours trilogy. The singer (who now goes by his beginning identify, Abel Tesfaye) revealed the identify of the third album within the sequence on Wednesday (Sept. 4) in a dramatic video organising the denouement of his musical story arc.
Although Hurry Up Tomorrow doesn’t at the moment have an official launch date but, Tesfaye arrange the follow-up to After Hours (2020) and Daybreak FM (2022) with one more elaborate backstory stuffed with intrigue and obscure menace.
“Yesterday was fourteen years in the past… We held our breath, falling right into a shimmering sea within the after hours of the evening,” started the scroll in an Instagram video backed by spare, ominous instrumental music that teased his subsequent period through phrases from earlier songs.
“Tried to cleanse the injuries with melodies and lights, a bulletproof bandage to protect what lies beneath,” he continued. “In a spot the place the seasons by no means modified, the place time ceased to exist. However therein lays the issue. Immediately has felt like an limitless spin, I maintain distorting the reality, proof against the dizziness, numb to the nausea. What lies beneath — screams in silence.”
The spooky story continued with extra allusions to the songs that got here earlier than, with the crawl including, “I look within the mirror and really feel each previous and new, caught in limbo and unable to maneuver. I nonetheless haven’t confronted myself. Extra songs may assist, however what do I’ve left to say? Woe is me in my gilded cage, proper? The very factor that when made me invincible failed me on the world stage. A brand new trauma surfaced, opening floodgates… when right this moment ends, I’ll uncover who I’m.”
Based on a press launch saying the album, it represents “the artistic apex of the undertaking, serving because the third and closing chapter crafted with existential and self-referential themes as seen with the most recent visionary teasers which have set followers ablaze with anticipation for this concluding installment.”
Final month, Tesfaye posted a cryptic three-minute CGI-heavy teaser that includes a digitally animated toddler crawling by means of a creepy mansion. A earlier teaser from July featured the obscure promise that “There are Three Chapters on this Story” together with a trailer during which a digital toddler runs by means of a subject and eludes hazard earlier than ascending to heaven.
The singer is performing a particular one-off live performance at Estádio Morumbi in São Paulo, Brazil on Saturday (Sept. 7) which will probably be livestreamed on YouTube; 10% of the proceeds from all merch gross sales on the present and on-line will go to the Brazilian Soul Fund of BrazilFoundation, which helps communities affected by pure disasters and financial hardship in southern Brazil.
Tesfaye can also be about to open the “Halloween Horror Nights” expertise at Common Studios in Los Angeles, “The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy,” which opens on Thursday (Sept. 5) and runs by means of Nov. 3.
Take a look at the preview beneath.