The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, is brilliant.  We all know that, so let’s not bother arguing.  But what made the act so amusing at first was how much it sounded like they didn’t want to be heard.  House of Balloons trickled across our radar last year, and all the hype eventually turned to a waterfall.

But The Weekend didn’t come out from the shadows.  Like his music, full of shame, furtive confessions and black humor, his public persona remained a mystery.  People jumped at any activity on his twitter, but he still refused to let anyone into their private space.

On Echoes of Silence, The Weeknd sounds like it’s beginning to step out of the shadows, like he’s becoming comfortable with the highly praised albums and critical success.  From an audacious opening with “D.D.” (“Dirty Diana” if you haven’t heard) to the mournful closing ballad, “Echoes of Silence,” The Weeknd is finally shedding some light, coming closer to comfort with success and fandom.

There is a brash confidence afoot in Echoes of Silence.  This band may not talk to the press much, but they’re more than happy to talk to their fans.  The surroundings are still dominated dark, lights-low opium den scenery, but this time, he’s speaking with a little more coherence, a bit more lucidity.  He wants to let us in.  He knows how interested we’ve all become, and now he’s decided to pull back the curtain a bit further.

Hopefully, that curtain comes back all the way sometime soon and the band goes on tour.  But until that time, there is still more than enough ground to dig on Echoes of Silence.