That The Morning flow on Snowchild

14 tracks is a great number. Just enough

She never need a man, she what a man need

2nd half of escape from LA sounds like that one song that goes

"And you deserve your name, on a crown, on a throne"

the town. i agree this album has heavy kissland vibes

Blade Runner 2049 in the snow is such a spot on description

Erm

@Nxxkx ?

I think the biggest criticisms that were levied against BBTM and Starboy was the notion of filler; padded albums with a sole purpose of boosting streaming sales. I think ‘scattered’ is an apt description from @Thrice in relation to at least one of those projects.

In comparison, I think After Hours feels like it has a polish to it. There’s some clear level of dedication here. There are definitely a couple songs on here in my first few listens that I’m not feeling, but I can still appreciate the album. It feels like it has some direction.

I think it’ll be another few years (at least) — but I’m interested to see where he goes from here...

Highs and lows

Highs are not trilogy level obviously. They are somewhat close

Lows are Starboy level trash. But not as trash as BBTM f***ery.

Will give it a couple more spins but ultimately I foresee it ending up like every Abel album post kiss land. And that is an album I revisit to listen to a couple of tracks (escape from LA for sure) but will rarely ever play it from start to finish with a purpose.

Hearing illangelo’s drums plastered all over the album was nice. It’s prob because of him this album gets somewhat close to trilogy territory. We know that sound was never driven by Abel. It was doc and Illangelo. Illangelo can only get him so close. He needs doc plus the removal of max martin to put him over the top and into trilogy level. Aka it’s something we’re never gonna get again.

Oh well onto the next one whenever that comes.

did the album leak then?

Yea like 35 minutes before the official release lmao. don't even know what the point was

You don’t love him if you’re thinking of me

Agreed.

I understand the structuring of the album on a narrative level, but the elegiac pacing of the first few tracks melting into each other followed by the more upbeat and intense songs makes for a strange listen, and not in a good way. Title track, as good as it is, doesn't seem to fit the album very well to me, which is very odd. Could be because I've overplayed it, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. I'll like it more as it ages I'm sure, but certainly underwhelming. It took me two weeks to really 'get' Kiss Land, but it demanded my attention until I did. This is much more accessible and much less inspired. I dunno, it's not bad or anything, just washes over me slightly.

Its bascially the same ole Abel we've been getting since post-Kissland

We don't need to break it down any further. No deep in depth Thrice like a***ysis of this album required.

Reminds me of Views in a weird way.

Starboy was Views

Idk If after hours has a drake equivalent

Too Late is crazy good. It’s like wasted times 10x. F***.

I agree with this.

Roll-out was perfect but this s*** not good

He does at least sound very comfortable on this. Thought he'd laid enough of a platform in the past few years to really knock this out of the park. Like you say, maybe next time.

This album is solid, I appreciate that it sounds different than starboy, when blinding lights dropped I low key though this was gonna be starboy 2 but it isn’t.

def needs more spins though, there’s a lot going on

After listing to this last night even falling asleep to it it’s safe to say I enjoy this a f*** ton cause I couldn’t stop. Need to take a further dive into each track to see how I like it. So far though I really f*** with the entire thing it is a good project only thing now is the test of time how long it will last for.

If the album sounding like the 3 last songs throughout the album, this is a different type of album. It is too much filler pop songs and production on here.

Im trimming it down right now after a few listens. Lets see how many songs I end up with...

Please never let this dude work with Max Martin again