Khalid bounces back with complex look at love in ‘After the Sun Goes Down’

“After the Sun Goes Down” by Khalid (RCA Records)

If you want to know how far Khalid has traveled in a year, just look at his album covers.

His summer 2024 16-track “Sincere” showed the R&B star solo, in black and white, looking at the camera equal parts faded and standoffish. In his new one, out Friday, he’s at the center of a crowd of sweaty dancers and lovers, clearly in his element. He’s looking at the camera, but this time inviting us in living color, his hair blue.

The 17-track “After the Sun Goes Down” is an upbeat, slightly throwback meditation on love in all its forms — lusty, ecstatic, devoted, flirty, defiant, apprehensive, revengeful and even post-passion cold. It’s a welcome return after his dour last outing.

One big thing that’s different this time is that Khalid is publicly out and proud, a change that has given his music a directness. “You’re my type, fly dark and handsome,” he sings in “Momentary Lovers.” On the opening cut, “Medicine,” he’s lovesick: “You got me feeling stimulations I never felt.”

So lusty, confident and passionate has Khalid become now that large sections of “After the Sun Goes Down” sound like they could easily be on a Troye Sivan album. “The place your lips can go is for you to decide,” he sings in the flirty and Sivan-esque “Out of Body.”

Tove Lo gets writing credit for two tunes, the sun-kissed “Instant” and the shimmering “Tank Top,” and Julia Michaels helped birth a pair, the falsetto-fueled “Angel Boy” and the pop-forward “Yes No Maybe.” Darkchild swirls “Out of Body” with Middle Eastern rhythms and producer Ilya pops up all over the album, helping background vocals, too.

Some things haven’t changed, like Khalid’s love of car culture, name-checking the Cadillac Eldorado, Lexus and an old Mercedes, having the windows down or the windows up, driving with the sunroof off. “Ride me like autobahns/Be on autopilot,” he sings on “Rendezvous.”

Last year, his album included the warning song “Please Don’t Fall in Love With Me.” This year, that’s going to be hard. MARK KENNEDY, MDT/AP