Grandeur is at the core of ‘This Music May Contain Hope’, RAYE’s second album, and it’s awe-inspiring. To deliver this glory, the artist born Rachel Keen can be found making her way through a smorgasbord of sounds across the ambitious record’s 73-minute runtime, from melodramatic ballads to exhilarating funk tunes and, of course, the jazz-pop she’s become so known for. It’s admittedly a lot to take in, but the brilliance that comes from RAYE’s unrestrained, all-in approach is worth the journey.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’, a concept album focused on overcoming insecurities and heartbreak, is framed like an extravagant theatre performance. Here, RAYE is both the subject and the omnipresent narrator. “Allow me to set the scene. Our story begins at 2:27am on a rainy night in Paris. Cue the thunder,” she says on opener ‘Girl Under The Grey Cloud’ set to orchestral strings. There are more bits of spoken word strewn throughout, ones that smartly give the album a bit more structure and grounding – almost like listening to the cast recording of a Broadway musical.
With that foundation, the South London singer gives herself the room to be indulgent with the album’s wide-reaching sonics, which pays off far more often than not. At times she leans into the show tune-ness of the concept – such as on the outro of the otherwise slinky R&B of ‘The WhatsApp Shakespeare’ – and at others she plays it straight, like the slow burning power ballad of ‘I Know You’re Hurting’. She even returns to her club sound of yore on the spectacular house banger ‘Life Boat’.
Throughout it all, two things are very evident: RAYE’s agile voice has never sounded so good, and her pen has never been so strong. Just take cheeky album standout ‘I Hate The Way I Look Today’, a swing-jazz tune that recalls Ella Fitzgerald where she sings “I’m okay to be lonely / If I’m lonely and skinny / I have such silly self-loathing thoughts, it seems”, or the heartbreaking details of ‘Nightingale Lane’: “It was right there, early June / Next to Old Park Avenue / Standing in the rain, I watched him walk away”.
For all the self-doubt and heartache that RAYE takes us through, in the end, she does come out the other side and delivers on the title: this album does indeed contain hope. She summons her girlfriends on ‘Click Clack Symphony’ (aided by Hans Zimmer), learns how to move on with the help of Al Green on silky ’70s soul mid-tempo ‘Goodbye Henry’, and calls on the heavens (and her sisters Amma and Absolutely) in order to be “free of all the pain and every fear” on the foot-stomping ‘Joy’. After the “rainy night” and “thunder” of the spoken word opener, RAYE discovers that “the sun exists behind the clouds”, as she says on ‘Happier Times Ahead’.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’ is RAYE firing on all cylinders – and then some. It’s showstopping musical maximalism at its grandest, while still being grounded in relatable experiences and unbridled emotions. Again, it’s admittedly a lot to take in – but that’s also why it’s so glorious, every theatrical flourish and stylistic detour a declaration from RAYE that she is finally making music for herself.
