The Weeknd’s debut hits stores September 10th. But after a full day of streaming, Kiss Land is cool but it’s no House of Balloons, and Abel is never topping his first work at this rate. It’s because he’s got a powerful, late-night-drunken-staggering-emotional aesthetic that only gets him so far (“so far” being a massive understatement, as he’s probably the second most iconic young R&B artist on the planet and getting major looks by hip-hop’s biggest star). His sound’s evolved painfully little since his 2011 days, because there’s not much room for it to grow into. His remix of Kavinsky’s “Odd Look” is the most important track on the album, because the French house artist’s ‘80s retro driving-along-a-cliffside-highway-at-midnight music is one of the few directions The Weeknd has to go in. It’s not enough.
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