The original post: /r/music by /u/RedHeadReviews on 2024-09-14 05:25:55.
The Weeknd has opened his new album cycle with an 80s-flavoured synth-pop song filled with longing, lust, and love. The parallels between Dancing In The Flames, the lead single for the final chapter of the After Hours trilogy, and Bliding Lights, this era’s centrepiece, are abundant but the recent revisions to the formula exclusively mute the magic. Less salient than its predecessor in every metric, Dancing In The Flames is an anticlimactic juncture in what has largely been a novel and cinematic odyssey.
Max Martin reprises his role as the beat architect here, peppering The Weeknd’s words with teetering synths. It’s functional, but the composition does lack the ostentatious detailing of the producers’ finest beats. He encourages the protagonist to colour inside the lines. There’s no stadium-sized chorus or emotional weight behind these words, The Weeknd purrs each of his lines, stuck in a mellow state. A line like “we’re dancin’ in the flames/ it’s indescribable,” should stir some kind of reaction, but the whole affair is a little too casual and low stakes to strike a chord.