Logging onto Facebook over the past few days has been painful. Endless posts begging to trade Coachella Weekend 2 tickets for Weekend 1 tickets; proposed outfits for the Indio, CA heat; relentless wall photos of the setlist—it hasn’t stopped. Though a large part of me feels jealous of those lucky Yalies who will make the trek to the festival this April, I have to admit that seeing newcomers like The Weeknd billed above established acts like Company Flow has me a bit puzzled. The Weeknd’s meteoric rise has happened almost solely through the wires and tubes of the Internet (that is how the Internet works, right?), and in just the past 10 months. Yet there he is, right between Beirut and Girl Talk.

Abel Tesfaye, or “The Weeknd,” erupted on the scene in March 2011 with his first mixtape House of Balloons. Thursday dropped in August as a sequel, and the ultimate release in the trilogy, Echoes of Silence, was posted for free download on his website in late December. From releases like “Wicked Games” and “Lonely Star,” Tesfaye has become known for his soft approach to R&B and hip-hop—no dearth of mournful lamentations about loves and lusts lost here.

While some, like Joe Colly of Pitchfork, have characterized his overwhelmingly popular campaign of intense vocal misery and hard-hitting bass as exemplary of the “genre-smearing” that will inevitably typify the future of 21st-century music, especially in the age of the World Wide Web, others aren’t so convinced. Tesfaye’s voice is good, but as Tom Ewing of the Guardian has noted, it’s his complete “command of mood” that sets him apart. He is a master of pathetic fallacy. Tesfaye places the listener directly in his own oftentimes maudlin and sometimes macabre nightmare world of empty hotel rooms and bleary-eyed sex. And while that’s nice (and I am a big fan), I would hesitate in calling it the future, or even really new. Sad men and women have told their sad stories since Adam and Eve realized they were naked. (On the weeknd, God rested.)

That being said, if House of Balloons established Tesfaye as the self-created Byronic hero of the 21st century, and if Thursday was a rising action by way of raised emotional stakes, Echoes of Silence seems to have skipped the climax entirely, instead proffering a truthfully disappointing denouement. Though moments of incredible potential toward the end of the album remind us why we fell in love in the first place, Echoes of Silence in fact largely stays true to its name—hollow repetitions of Tesfaye’s trademarked lonely longing. Where it once felt novel, it now just feels a little like The Weeknd never grew out of his embarrassing Holden Caulfield stage.

The opening track, “D.D.,” is an homage to Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana.” While at times Tesfaye’s voice is an eerie ghost of the late Jackson, the song as a whole lacks the strength in production found on earlier releases like “The Morning”—at least until the very end, when an onslaught of synth and bass brings emotional immediacy. “Outside” manipulates some Siouxsie Sioux–style xylophone before launching into a fairly boring and typical Tesfaye part-jeremiad, part-self-lauding-detail-of-sexual-domination-despite-the-pains-of-past-love.

“XO/The Host” is easily the crux of the album. Though the lyrics here rehash Tesfaye’s “lust over love” and #zomgimsodamaged shtick—with highlights ranging from almost hilariously direct (“Can we P.O.V.?”) to trite (“When your hair’s a mess/You look so depressed”)—the track’s production moves the Weeknd’s aesthetic closer to Jamie XX’s “Far Nearer” and the growing “post-step” movement around it. This is a welcome and new direction for The Weeknd. Stripped down to vocals, bass, and a touch of synth, “XO/The Host” doesn’t have to work to evoke the sexual angst that Tesfaye otherwise tries so hard to create. This is The Weeknd at his barest, and it delivers. “The Host” transitions into “Initiation,” a sort of demon mating song with vocal pitch bends, the creepiest of the nine tracks.

“Same Old Song” frankly does seem like the same old song. It’s hard to stir up any sympathy when Tesfaye cries that he’s “been alone for almost all [his] life,” yet constantly reminds us that he’s barely 21. It only makes his exclamations of having “made it big poppin’” seem all the more disingenuous. (Long-time fans will remember it was only a few months ago that Tesfaye first set foot on a plane.)

“The Fall,” produced by Clams Casino, contains some of the most lyrically honest moments on the album. Momentarily, Tesfaye stops trying to impress us with his popularity, sexual prowess, and youth. Instead, he admits that he actually is just kind of a baby and doesn’t really have any idea what the F is going on—“I’m a kid so it’s hard for me to hold money.” The back track of clapping and bass, with rhythmic references back to “The Host” and “Initiation,” is a strong moment for production, recalling the organic flavor of Clams’ earlier 2011 release Instrumentals.

Overall, Echoes of Silence is worth a listen, for both longtime (if the past 10 months is a long time) and new fans of Tesfaye’s work. Though it doesn’t have as many shining moments of pure unadulterated pain on the dance floor as his earlier releases, a few standout tracks make this worthy of your record collection—perhaps if only to complete “The Trilogy.” Is it the sound of the future of post-genre-step-future-garage-drum-and-bass-rhythm-electronic-blues music? That may just be the Internet talking.