RAYE - This Music May Contain Hope

You have to hand it to RAYE; she certainly showed the industry what it knew about talent. The story of that debut album is well written enough to be an unnecessary introduction by this point, but it creates a degree of pressure. Following up on a breakthrough record is one thing, but when you've won so many awards, made significant indentations into that US market, and started to appear as the sort of musician people start to describe as 'timeless', a passable second album doesn't cut it.

That's why the fact that RAYE's second album arrives as a full-blown, four-part epic, split into seasons and stretching across a whopping seventeen tracks, is such a delight. There's no sitting back and repeating what came before, or hedging bets for commercial safety. 'This Music May Contain Hope' is bigger, riskier and far more structurally adventurous than anything she's attempted before, and that alone is worth appreciating.

Autumn and winter form the emotional core, where vulnerability takes centre stage and the writing leans all the way in. RAYE lets every feeling have a voice. Grief sits next to humour, confidence shares space with fear. Her voice remains the anchor throughout, carrying the weight of it all without ever losing its sense of control. 'I Will Overcome' prowls, showcasing everything that made RAYE such a unique prospect in the first place: soulful yet razor-sharp, embattled but empowered. 'Beware... The South London Lover Boy', on the other hand, swings and struts as it puts on a velvet-roped show. Together, they're proof of just how many angles of attack RAYE offers. Brash and bombastic or dark and claustrophobic, any aesthetic is a deadly weapon.

When she soars, she really does need to watch out for the sun. 'Click Clack Symphony' is so cinematic that it needed Hans Zimmer to lend his considerable talent. Few, if any, other artists currently operating today would think to drop a track like this, and far fewer could actually pull it off. With flawless poise, it sits somewhere between the bustling neon lights and grey concrete of London and the wild ambition of the Hollywood hills.

By the time spring and summer arrive, the palette opens up. There's warmth and lightness that give the record a sense of movement. Even at seventeen tracks, where the scale occasionally stretches its own boundaries, the personality running through it all keeps everything firmly in orbit. To suggest RAYE has the X factor seems sort of perverse, given all the industry nonsense she had to go through to get here, but it's hard to imagine a more charismatic force of any era. Two albums in, and you can already start thinking about legacy.

There are moments of pure brilliance scattered throughout. 'WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!' - a song so addictive it still feels as unfathomably fresh and dynamic as on its first play - bursts with character and charm, while 'Joy.', featuring her sisters Amma and Absolutely, adds a familial glow that deepens the record's emotional world. If an artist can pull off making their album finale a six-and-a-half-minute track of which two-thirds is a list of credits ending with thanking their distribution partners, then you know they've got credit in the bank. What precedes it is so damn likeable, nobody is denying her the extravagance.

Full of big ambition and packed with emotional intelligence, 'This Music May Contain Hope' is RAYE at her most fearless. Every risk feels justified, every wild idea fully formed. It's a bold, all-feelings-on-deck mission statement that confirms her as one of pop's most compelling voices.