Raye’s ‘This Music May Contain Hope’: Album Review

It’s been said countless times that for a new artist, especially a successful one, the second album is exponentially more difficult than the first. There’s the constantly looming threat of the sophomore slump, and the old saw that the artist has had their entire life to write the first album and barely a spare minute to write the second. But steeper and yet more-subtle challenges are involved as well: How much can you change or progress artistically without alienating the people who loved your first album, and at the same time not repeat yourself?

Not surprisingly, with her second album, British singer Raye has plunged ahead fearlessly.

Her determination to make music on her own terms — splitting with her label and releasing her first album independently — paid off enormously when that debut, “My 21st Century Blues,” won a record six BRIT Awards in 2024 and garnered her four Grammy nominations as well. And as the gloriously sprawling “This Music May Contain Hope” shows, she’s not about to change that approach now.

Suffice it to say, the album does not lack for ambition: Divided into four sections based on the seasons, it sprawls across a surprisingly fast-moving 70 minutes, 17 songs and nearly as many styles. Inevitably, it runs the risk of being too much for some listeners: too many songs, too many stylistic pivots, too much of… well, basically everything. This is not an album for background listening — it basically demands your attention.

But as artists from Queen to Beyoncé have proven, ambition and excess can be glorious things when deployed with intelligence and humor, and while we’re not equating Raye with either of the above, there’s a similar sense here of trusting the artist to take you on an interesting voyage without wasting your time … at least not much (we won’t be re-playing her five-minute album-closing recitation of the credits anytime soon, a nice if tedious gesture).

So what’s on that voyage? An unlikely combination of the two above artists come to mind: Beyoncé on the R&B-leaning tracks and in the gorgeously stacked backing vocals; and, unexpectedly, Freddie Mercury, because this album’s wide-ranging but surprisingly focused variety of (often very British) musical styles recalls Queen’s 1975 masterpiece, “A Night at the Opera.” There’s R&B, pop, old-school soul, vaudeville, an acoustic track, big band, several songs that sound like they were plucked from musicals (particularly the jolting “Click Clack Symphony,” complete with a massive orchestral score from Hans Zimmer), a cameo from soul legend Al Green, and guest appearances from her grandfather as well as her two sisters, Absolutely and Amma, both powerful singers as well (Absolutely’s ambitious and excellent new album “Paracosm” somehow slipped below the radar earlier this year). The album is so multisegmented that some of the most memorable moments are actually parts of songs, like the soaring wordless chorus on “I Know You’re Hurting” and the Jamie XX-esque rhythm of “Skin & Bones.”

Needless to say, it’s a lot to process, and Raye makes clear what’s coming from the jump: The album opens with a spoken-word introduction setting the scene, followed by the epic and ominous “I Will Overcome,” complete with a roaring orchestra, choir and operatic backing singer; the listener hardly gets a breath before there’s a hard pivot into the brass-spangled, upbeat, vampy “Beware… the South London Lover Boy.” And from there, she’s off to the races.

Most of the album’s singles are placed in the second half, with the R&B tracks dominating the powerful “Spring” section of the album. Yet even those songs stretch across styles, from the grittier vibe of the Al Green-featuring “Goodbye Henry” to the slow-burning ballad “Nightingale Lane,” closing with the Aretha Frankin-sampling “Skin & Bones.” However, that side starts off with the most vaudeville song on the album (and our favorite), a lightning-fast 1930s-jazz-style pastiche with a rollercoaster melody that — and this will sound completely insane — brings a comic delivery to lyrics about body shaming and insecurity, complete with a call-and-response male chorus who sound like they should be wearing tuxedos and top hats.

The album roars into its final chapter with the R&B raveup “Where the Hell Is My Husband?” before moving into the family segment (with her grandfather and sisters), then toward the exit with the Philly Soul of “Happier Times Ahead,” ending the album on a — thematic link — hopeful note, before a brief “Wizard of Oz”-ish outro song that leads into the credits.

There’s a lot to take in — orchestras and choirs and horns and, occasionally, driving beats — but most impressive throughout is the ringleader, Raye herself, not just for bringing this jumbo jet of a project in for a safe landing, but most of all as a songwriter and singer: She purrs and belts and soars; some of her melodies and lyrics are so fast and polysyllabic they’d be tongue-twisters if spoken by the average person, but she reels them off with the ease of an Olympic athlete. (And we haven’t even gotten into the nearly 3,800 words of lyrics, which are basically about overcoming obstacles, resilience and belief in oneself.)

Yes, it’s a hell of a lot: an overstuffed, overambitious and over-almost-everything album, but considering the scope and size, it’s also remarkably focused and moves through a head-spinning variety of themes and styles surprisingly quickly. Yet as deeply personal and dark as the subject matter can sometimes be, amid the horrors of today’s headlines, the album’s optimism is a welcome sound.