Album Review: The Weeknd - Trilogy

Behind his moniker, The Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye has created a new form of seduction. It's dark and with blurred vision. It's chemically enhanced and full of bravado. The lifestyle that he's documenting is inviting but dangerous, and with Trilogy he's crafted a soundtrack for the highs and lows that those late night choices bring.

This much-anticipated three-disc package combines mini albums House Of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes Of Silence, creating a formidable body of work that offers a plethora of varied highlights to disappear within. If you're already familiar with the output of the 22-year-old there's not much new here – the tracks have been remastered slightly and there's one new song found on each disc (Twenty Eight, Valerie, Till Dawn (Here Comes The Sun), however, corralled into a single package, to experience Tesfaye's entire vision back-to-back-to-back is to really bathe in the humbling ability of the young Toronto vocalist and producer. With the bold bass-heavy title track and the pleadingly honest Wicked Games in its ranks, there's no denying first release, House Of Balloons, stands tall as The Weeknd's defining body of work. But his phenomenal touches are all over these records, and the way Tesfaye mixes industrial rhythms with his flowing Motown vocal range leaves you with this light and shade balance that sounds like it was built on the streets to transmit to the outer reaches.

This collection is somewhat of a victory lap considering the amount of praise that has already been heaped on these discs. What will really be interesting, though, following such an epic undertaking is where The Weeknd takes us from here.