RAYE_THIS-MUSIC-MAY-CONTAIN-HOPE-2026
Seventeen songs for 73 minutes already give the measure of what we are about to listen to. “This Music May Contain Hope”, the second album from the new star Raye, starts from an evident ambition.
It's a concept album that moves almost like a musical divided into four “seasons”, designed to be absorbed from start to finish. Inside there is all of Raye's research and his desire to confirm a global success.
It is a work of almost reckless grandeur, a journey that arises from a reflective intro-statement and then sinks into a kaleidoscope where retro soul, a now crystallized trademark, collides with the most orthodox swing, R&B, jazz, big band, muscular house, visceral urban and that delightful 50s easy listening patina.
“This Music May Contain Hope” is a bold and deeply personal work that shows Raye at her most daring and emotionally intense, marking a new evolution for the South London artist, capable of transforming pain, insecurities and internal conflicts into a cinematic sound story, focused on resilience and rebirth.
The seventeen songs develop as a contemporary drama with vivid colors, balancing darkness and a constant tension towards combative optimism. The result is an immersive work full of emotion, which gives hope a meaning far from any naivety: something conquered, fragile and, for this reason, profoundly transformative.
Everything is full: orchestrations, vocals, talent, sound trappings. Take a ride with “I Know You're Hurting” to understand: six minutes of pure technical and vocal tightrope walking.
To decipher the album, imagine yourself at a Gatsby-style party projected to 2026: “This Music May Contain Hope” could be the perfect soundtrack.
The intrinsic limit of the album lies precisely in this expressive bulimia, in an accumulation of layers that at times borders on indigestion and which would have benefited from a more ruthless hand in the editing phase.
Yet, in an era dominated by aseptic minimalism and a production that proceeds by subtraction for fear of ridicule, RAYE's excess becomes an act of artistic resistance. It is a work that adds where others take away, which risks kitsch to grasp the sublime, closing with an epilogue that is an existential testament: the certainty of the end as the only engine to celebrate the ephemeral vigor of the seasons.
It's the triumph of addition over calculation, a record that, as the label says, contains hope only because it had the courage to cross everything else.
“For it's life's guarantee / That we're all going to die / Come rain, or come storms / We've got one little life / The sun has promised to shine / All four beautiful seasons. / Even if we can't see it, / Hope must always exist. / Hope is above the clouds to conclude / There and so it goes / And as it says on the tin, in the winds / That this May Contain Hope.”
The essence of everything.
TO LISTEN NOW
I Will Overcome – Beware.. The South London Lover Boy – Happier Times Ahead
TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY
I see Life Boat as quite useless – Joy in the chorus seems a bit Rovazzi to me!!!
SCORE: Score 7.50
THE VOTES OF OTHERS
DIY Magazine – Rating 10.00
The Independent (UK) – Rating 10.00
The Telegraph (UK) – Rating 8.00
Clash Music – Rating 8.00
The Guardian (UK) – Rating 6.00
