Album review: Hurry Up Tomorrow a fine, exhausting end to The Weeknd’s recording career
At 22 songs and a runtime that nears an hour-and-a-half, this chart-topping, culture-shaping artist’s sixth LP deserves one’s full attention and a decent stretch of time to immerse yourself in it.
Album reviews for week of February 15 2025:
R&B/HIP-HOP/POP
Hurry Up Tomorrow
The Weeknd
Republic Records / Universal Music
With his sixth studio album, The Weeknd teases a mighty swan song: this is potentially Abel Tesfaye’s final release under this particular moniker, which has grown across the past decade. The Weeknd is now one of the most reliably popular artists in the world, and regularly fills stadiums — including in Australia last October — and tops music charts. Dripping with cinematic drama and pulsating late-night energy, Hurry Up Tomorrow arrives with a sense of finality to it, but ultimately could have benefited from a final edit in order to fully cement this entry as a final one in The Weeknd’s now sprawling journey of sound. Teased by singles Sao Paulo, Timeless and Cry For Me, this album feels as close to a signature sound for the Canadian artist as 2022’s concept record Dawn FM. Its weaving of alternative R&B with synth-pop and delicious electronic beats provides a sense of elevation to The Weeknd’s already established palette of hedonistic, darkly alluring soundscapes. Take it back even further to his debut mixtape, 2011’s House of Balloons, and there are moments on Hurry Up Tomorrow that feel closely aligned with that masterful introduction of a record (such as the title track and Red Terror). Still, at 22 songs and a runtime that nears an hour-and-a-half, Hurry Up Tomorrow can feel exhausting; this is definitely an album that deserves one’s full attention and a decent stretch of time to immerse yourself in it.
Guest appearances from artists including Lana Del Rey (The Abyss), Playboi Carti (Timeless), Justice (Wake Me Up), Future (Enjoy The Show) and Giorgio Moroder (Big Sleep) beef up the album’s expansive nature. Yet the strongest points come in Weeknd-only moments such as the emotional Baptized In Fear, the electronic-funk of Open Hearts and the dreamy Take Me Back To LA. The Weeknd is at his best when diving into painfully raw lyricism. We’ve heard this right throughout his career, from the toxic late-night calls that formed the foundation of House of Balloons, to the cocaine-driven nights alluded to on 2015’s Beauty Behind the Madness. Now 34, what has made Tesfaye such a powerful artist in his guise of The Weeknd is his ability to show off human complexity through his songwriting, and his headfirst exploration of the indulgent, heady and destructive. Hurry Up Tomorrow spends time exploring the above themes, while the central character — his alter-ego — navigates a chaotic relationship to fame and self-fulfilment. If this is in fact The Weeknd’s final outing under this name, it stands as one of his boldest efforts to date. While it remains emotionally resonant throughout, the record has all the pieces in play to find a place within this culture-shaping artist’s wider catalogue which could make it as impactful as Dawn FM or House of Balloons. One last trim of some not-as-cohesive moments could have made for a near-perfect listening experience, but in all, Hurry Up Tomorrow is deserving of a deep dive, as it’s undeniably an album rich in influences and ideas.
Sosefina Fuamoli
INDIE POP
Dial-Up
Peggy Frew
Sad Frog
Peggy Frew has written four novels, but instead of embarking on a new book she began writing a solo album instead. The results sit comfortably between her fiction and her longtime work in Melbourne indie rock band Art of Fighting, whose Marty Brown produces and plays various instruments across Dial-Up. Foreshadowed by that album title, several songs reflect on Frew’s younger self in the 1990s. The opening Country House is about becoming someone else in a new relationship, while the darkly adrift Newtown locates its backdrop as August ‘97 before meditating on the sliding-doors outcome of losing a crucial phone number. Lighter in tone, Off Season Blues muses on a summer job at age 22 as Frew airily poses a series of lingering questions. Her murmured vocals and low-key piano balladry add a layer of dreamy dislocation to these songs, as does the question of what is imagined and what is autobiography. But such ambiguity heightens the album’s writerly themes just as much as the woozy arrangements do, and Frew’s travelogue through the past is well worth eavesdropping on.
Doug Wallen
WORLD/DUB
ONO
Moana & The Tribe
Black Pearl Ltd
It may only be 32 minutes in duration and six tracks long but ONO is all quality. You’d expect nothing less from one of NZ’s most decorated artists. Via her sixth album with The Tribe, singer-songwriter Moana Maniapoto shows she’s a champion not only of Maori customs and language but also of indigenous culture elsewhere. With her regular sidekicks, co-producer Paddy Free and Scotty (Te Manahau) Morrison, Moana has fashioned an absorbing concept release in which her voice and traditional Maori language (te reo) sits snugly beside other female tongues, above subtly contrasting beds of electronica-dub. In a haunting opener, Sami/Norwegian Mari Boine’s ethereal singing shines with Moana’s over a vocal drone. The set finishes on a similarly atmospheric note with Gaelic/Scottish singer Megan Henderson overlapping with a compelling incantation (karakia) from Morrison. In between, the turbocharged Metis/Canadian chanting of Native North American Jani Lauzon is truly stunning – not that tracks with Shellie Morris (Gadigal/Australia) and Inka Mbing (Atayal/Taiwan) lack punch.
Tony Hillier
SOUL/FUNK
Hard Truths
Fulton Street
Stoic Records
Melbourne is Australia’s soul-funk mecca, with bands such as The Bamboos and Cookin’ On 3 Burners plus solo artists Shannon Busch (aka Wilsn) and Emma Donovan leading the charge. Add to that list Fulton Street, whose second album comes six years after its arresting debut, Problems & Pain. Fronted by big-voiced Sri Lankan-Australian singer Shannen Wick, this set is forged from a similar mould to New York’s Dap-Kings and its late singer Sharon Jones. Wick shares with Jones a similar command of the live stage, though vocally she has more in common with Chaka Khan and Betty Davis. Hard Truths is harder and edgier than the debut, with the Wick-penned Disappointment, Another Girl’s Man and Doubts spelling out she is not a woman to be trifled with. Weight of the World knowingly examines the immigrant experience, while the tender closer Mama’s Eyes finds Wick defiantly owning her ethnicity. Interspersed throughout are three short, sharp instrumentals, lending a showband quality to the album that spotlights its deftly orchestrated horns, strings and busy rhythm section, which includes choppy guitar and organ. But even the titles of these interludes – A Woman Scorned, Sister Strut and Heartbreaker – signal who’s really in charge here.
Phil Stafford
INDIE FOLK / CHAMBER POP
Mahashmashana
Father John Misty
Sub Pop
When Father John Misty (aka Josh Tillman) first arrived, tongue firmly planted in cheek and songs pouring out of his guitar in 2012, the US singer-songwriter seemed like a necessary palate cleanser to the overwrought, earnest folk that dominated the indie scene at the time. On his sixth album, not only has Tillman outpaced many of his peers, he’s outgrown them in scope. Recorded with his live band for the first time and encompassing many of the themes – blatant use of psychedelics, disaffection with modern society, ego death – of his excellent previous records, Mahashmashana offers a sumptuous suite that feels like it was exhumed from behind the locked storeroom of an expensive 1970s pop studio. It’s equal parts George Harrison and Lana Del Rey, boasting formidable songwriting and arrangements that are wasted on regular headphones. Tillman — whose vocal range and loquaciousness is matched only by his proclivity for penning eight-minute songs — shines as much on golden FM pop numbers (such as third track Josh Tilman and the Accidental Dose) as he does across blues stompers like She Cleans Up. Darkly funny as ever, there’s as much to decode here as there is to dive into musically.
Jonathan Seidler
