Swedish House Mafia & The Weeknd, Moth to a Flame | Track Review 🎵

Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd make a formidable team on the irresistibly catchy, minor-key dance single, “Moth to a Flame.”

“L

ike a moth to a flame / I’ll pull you in, I pulled you back to / What you need initially.”  In 2021, 🎙 Swedish House Mafia (🎙 Axwell, 🎙 Steve Angello, and 🎙 Sebastian Ingrosso) returned – gargantuan news.  Their comeback single, 🎵 “It Gets Better” was a surefire bop.  Perhaps even bigger is 🎵 “Moth to a Flame”, a collaboration with one of today’s biggest pop and R&B stars, 🎙 The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye)!  Only good things can happen when SHM and Tesfaye join forces, right? Right!

As to be expected from Swedish House Mafia, the production work on “Moth to a Flame” is intriguing from the beginning. The soundscape is ear catching – slick to the nth degree.  The collective of producers does a fine job of pairing The Weeknd with a backdrop that plays to his strengths. When that groove kicks in, you can’t help but to move some part of your body.  As always, Abel’s tenor is clear and pure.  Besides having a marvelous instrument to work with, the melody of the record is also marvelous – incredible tuneful. Lyrically and thematically, matters of the heart are conveyed, finding Tesfaye entangled with another man’s girl. On the chorus, he asks:

“But does he know you call me when he sleeps?
But does he know the pictures that you keep?
But does he know the reasons that you cry?
Or tell me, does he know where your heart lies?
Where it truly lies.”

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Final Thoughts 💭

So, does “Moth to a Flame” show us a side of The Weeknd we haven’t already heard? Nah – we’ve pretty much seen the deck of cards at this point.  That said, “Moth into a Flame” didn’t need to show us anything different! The wave Tesfaye has been riding has yet to become stale – we love him!  “Moth to a Flame” is highly effective, with all participants shining on this dance gem.   

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🎙  Swedish House Mafia & The Weeknd • 🎵  “Moth to a Flame” • 🏷  SSA Recording, LLP / Republic • 🗓  10.22.21
[📷 : Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype, OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay, Republic, SSA Recording, LLP]

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