On Starboy, The Weeknd can't escape his past

Abel Tesfaye heads into space on his new album Starboy, but only occasionally finds a star worth landing on.

Rising pop star's wayward third album shows he hasn't yet worked out the best way forward.

"I hear the secrets that you keep," coos The Weeknd, sounding every inch like a young Michael Jackson. The Canadian R&B star stretches "keep" into so many syllables it forms an entire sentence, then slams home the hook: "When you talk in your sleep."

Wait, what? Is this the same guy who used to make soul-destroying hedonism sound awesome? The one who only slept with girls with "20 different pills in them"? The same man who sang modern pop's filthiest hook on Ty Dolla $ign's still shocking Or Nah?

At the ripe old age of 26, is serial womaniser Abel Tesfaye aching for a - gasp - monogamous relationship?

Those lyrics are from Secrets, a summer pop stunner and radio smash-in-waiting that doubles as the centrepiece of Tesfaye's third studio album, Starboy.

It's also the perfect example of the precarious quandary The Weeknd finds himself in: does he embrace his Jackson-sized ambitions and deliver Can't Feel My Face-sized stadium pop hits, or does he honour his dank roots as a disturbed underground R&B monster?

Starboy tries to have a foot in both camps, and it doesn't work. It veers between the operatic celebrations of debauchery of his first and best mixtape House of Balloons, and the occasional pop nous of last year's Beauty Behind the Madness, with increasingly wayward results.

True, there's a great pop album aching to escape from Starboy's overwhelming 18 tracks, one that includes Daft Punk's two excellent collaborations that bookend the album, Starboy and I Feel It Coming, as well as Secrets, the jaunty stride and class of Kendrick Lamar on Sidewalks, the upbeat pop ballad Love to Lay, and, possibly, the Chainsmokers-style cheese of Rockin'.

But it's clouded by Starboy's confusing darker side. "Woke up by a girl, I don't even know her name," he sings wearily on Party Monster, a murky not-again drug tale that comes directly after the shimmering title track. On Six Feet Under, he predicts his own death at the hands of a deranged groupie.

Yet, several tracks later, he's begging a lover not to leave him. "Don't stop your lovin', it's all I have," he pines on the claustrophobic Nothing Without You. At least the inconsistency is consistent.

The Weeknd seems completely aware of his current conundrum - "I just won a new award for a kids show," he sings on Reminder, referencing Can't Feel My Face's Kids' Choice Awards nomination earlier this year - but Starboy proves he's yet to work out how to handle his escalating audience.

It's a reminder that he may have lost his octopus dreadlocks, but Tesfaye hasn't yet worked out how to shake the demons from his past.

The Weeknd - Starboy
Label: XO
Stars: Three
Verdict: There's too much space between these stars