The Weeknd is gearing up for the final chapter in his After Hours trilogy. The singer (who now goes by his birth name, Abel Tesfaye) revealed the name of the third album in the series on Wednesday (Sept. 4) in a dramatic video setting up the denouement of his musical story arc.
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Though Hurry Up Tomorrow doesn’t currently have an official release date yet, Tesfaye set up the follow-up to After Hours (2020) and Dawn FM (2022) with yet another elaborate backstory filled with intrigue and vague menace.
“Yesterday was fourteen years ago… We held our breath, falling into a shimmering sea in the after hours of the night,” began the scroll in an Instagram video backed by spare, ominous instrumental music that teased his next era via phrases from earlier songs.
“Attempted to cleanse the wounds with melodies and lights, a bulletproof bandage to shield what lies beneath,” he continued. “In a place where the seasons never changed, where time ceased to exist. But therein lays the problem. Today has felt like an endless spin, I keep distorting the truth, immune to the dizziness, numb to the nausea. What lies beneath — screams in silence.”
The spooky story continued with more allusions to the songs that came before, with the crawl adding, “I look in the mirror and feel both old and new, stuck in limbo and unable to move. I still haven’t faced myself. More songs could help, but what do I have left to say? Woe is me in my gilded cage, right? The very thing that once made me invincible failed me on the world stage. A new trauma surfaced, opening floodgates… when today ends, I’ll discover who I am.”
According to a press release announcing the album, it represents “the creative apex of the project, serving as the third and final chapter crafted with existential and self-referential themes as seen with the latest visionary teasers that have set fans ablaze with anticipation for this concluding installment.”
Last month, Tesfaye posted a cryptic three-minute CGI-heavy teaser featuring a digitally animated toddler crawling through a creepy mansion. A previous teaser from July featured the vague promise that “There are Three Chapters in this Tale” along with a trailer in which a digital toddler runs through a field and eludes danger before ascending to heaven.
The singer is performing a special one-off concert at Estádio Morumbi in São Paulo, Brazil on Saturday (Sept. 7) which will be livestreamed on YouTube; 10% of the proceeds from all merch sales at the show and online will go to the Brazilian Soul Fund of BrazilFoundation, which supports communities affected by natural disasters and economic hardship in southern Brazil.
Tesfaye is also about to open the “Halloween Horror Nights” experience at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, “The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy,” which opens on Thursday (Sept. 5) and runs through Nov. 3.
Check out the preview below.
