The Weeknd's 2016 album, Starboy, was the musical equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster: action-packed, star-studded, with a little something for everyone. Here, he returns to his unfiltered, art-house roots with a release so intimate and tortured, you’ll feel like a fly on his bedroom wall. Stuttering snares, gauzy production, and R-rated lyrics about sex and drugs (“I got two red pills to take the blues away,” he coos through a vocoder on “Privilege”) paint a vivid picture of a brooding Lothario—one that strongly resembles the dark artist we initially met on House of Balloons. This time around, he’s tapped gothic electro king Gesaffelstein to bring a sheen to the shadows with neon synths and fuzzy echoes that lift his signature anguish into new emotional heights.