The Weeknd has kicked off the New Year by teasing fans with the imminent arrival of his highly anticipated fifth studio album.

The Canadian hitmaker (real name Abel Tesfaye) has been teasing the follow-up to 2020’s ‘After Hours’ for the last months, revealing in October that it was almost complete and that the “only thing missing is a couple [of] characters that are key to the narrative”.

In August, he shared the first taste of the album with the release of ‘Take My Breath’, a pop, funk, synth-wave and disco infused track that NME called “a strong first step” to begin The Weeknd’s new era.

The latest update on the yet-to-be-titled album comes in the form of a screenshot of a text conversation between the singer-songwriter and La Mar Taylor, the co-founder of XO Records, and The Weeknd’s creative director, which The Weeknd shared this morning (January 1) on his Instagram.

“Happy New Year brother! What we thinking ??” Taylor asks. The Weeknd replies: “Happy new year! Everything feels chaotic again. Music can heal and that feels more important than another album rollout.”

He then writes: “Let’s just drop the whole thing and enjoy it with the people… XO.”

A release date for the project has yet to be confirmed. You can see the text exchange between the pair below.

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The Weeknd had a busy 2021. Besides kickstarting his “new era”, he released a string of collaborative tracks including his ‘Save Your Tears’ remix with Ariana Grande in April; ‘You Right’ with Doja Cat in June; ‘Better Believe’ alongside Belly and Young Thug in July; ‘Die For It’, once again with Belly as well as Nas, in August; ‘Moth To A Flame’ with Swedish House Mafia in October; and ‘One Right Now’ with Post Malone in November.

Last month, he appeared on a new Aaliyah record called ‘Poison’. The team-up was released via Blackground Records 2.0 and Empire ahead of a posthumous studio album by Aaliyah, which is due to arrive at a later date.

It was also recently reported that The Weeknd is in talks to write tracks for the Black Panther 2 soundtrack.

As reported by Metro UK, Marvel has “finalised the storyline so have started courting artists to start writing songs with it in mind.”

Doja Cat, Stormzy, Solange, and breakthrough artists Giveon and Brent Faiyaz have also reportedly been contacted.