ALBUM REVIEWS
“The world has grown so accustomed to being apathetic,” Norwegian alt-pop sensation AURORA told NME about the thought-process behind her fifth album, a record that asks: ‘What Happened To The Heart?’ Good news is scarce as we find ourselves in a seemingly constant doom spiral. The answer, as AURORA seeks to find, is within you. That lump beating in your chest that gives you life and pumps out the love that pulls you to others – we just need something dramatic to remind us. “Something needs to break apart,” she continued. “The least we can do is just keep being in touch with each other and ourselves.”
What better way to connect than through bangers? “We’re good people and we both deserve peace,” she sings on the ecstatic Euro-pop of ‘Some Type Of Skin’ – a simple message that speaks profoundly to our times. With a monolithic chorus worthy of her fellow Scandis The Cardigans, ‘Your Blood’ pegs it across the dancefloor with the message that we’re just essentially all flesh and blood; with far more to bind than divide us. “Never give up on love,” she offers on the funk-infused ‘Do You Feel’. Here are more reasons not to.
Like Björk before her (and we should stress now that this is where the similarity ends), AURORA has often been plagued with this patronising image of being another “ethereal” Nordic witch. This, though, is a fiery record dealing in reality – dancing with the imps rather than away with the fairies. Album highlight ‘My Name’ pulses with a Trent Reznor groove – a flash of evil but all guts, balls and intent.
‘The Blade’ has a similar gnarliness with a touch of Massive Attack menace, while ‘My Body Is Not Mine’ climaxes is an apocalyptic rave wig-out, with a little help of Tom Rowlands from past collaborators The Chemical Brothers. Then there’s ‘Starvation’ – oosh – a tribal, out of body rave that begs the question “Why do we have to die, for us to see the light?” Why indeed? It’s pretty blinding right here.
“What is life worth living if you don’t bleed for anything?” she sings on the wuthering ‘To Be Alright’. Amen, and from an artist who’s gone the extra mile to make a a point with gusto. When NME asked Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes why he recruited her for ‘Limousine’ on the metal titans’ new album ‘Post Human: Nex Gen’, he told us: “AURORA for me is what a pop star should be, what the next wave of pop stars should look like; someone that has the songs, but is a real person who dares to speak what they believe in, who gives a shit about the world.”
Can music still change the world? At least AURORA is leading by example with a dazzling world of her own.
ALBUM REVIEWS
Grandeur sits at the heart of ‘This Music May Contain Hope’, RAYE’s second album, and the result feels nothing short of breathtaking. On this record, the singer born Rachel Keen explores a wide spectrum of sounds across its 73 minute length, moving from emotional ballads to lively funk moments and the jazz pop style she has become closely associated with. It can feel overwhelming at first, yet the magic that comes from RAYE fully committing to her vision makes the experience rewarding from start to finish.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’, a conceptual project about pushing through insecurity and heartbreak, unfolds like a lavish stage production. RAYE takes on the dual role of main character and guiding voice throughout the story. “Allow me to set the scene. Our story begins at 2:27am on a rainy night in Paris. Cue the thunder,” she says during the opening track ‘Girl Under The Grey Cloud’, which arrives with sweeping orchestral strings. Spoken passages appear across the album, helping shape the narrative and giving the project a sense of direction, almost like hearing the official recording of a Broadway show.
With this framework in place, the South London artist allows herself to fully explore the album’s diverse musical palette, and most of the time it works in her favor. Sometimes she fully embraces the theatrical side of the concept, especially during the closing section of the smooth R&B track ‘The WhatsApp Shakespeare’. Other moments are delivered more straightforwardly, such as the emotional slow building ballad ‘I Know You’re Hurting’. She also revisits her earlier dance influences with the impressive house track ‘Life Boat’.
Across the entire album, two things stand out clearly. RAYE’s flexible vocals sound better than ever, and her songwriting feels sharper than it has before. Take the playful highlight ‘I Hate The Way I Look Today’, a swing jazz inspired track reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald, where she admits “I’m okay to be lonely / If I’m lonely and skinny / I have such silly self-loathing thoughts, it seems”. Then there is the emotional storytelling in ‘Nightingale Lane’: “It was right there, early June / Next to Old Park Avenue / Standing in the rain, I watched him walk away”.
Despite all the vulnerability and emotional struggles explored throughout the record, RAYE ultimately reaches a place of optimism, staying true to the album’s title. She gathers her close friends on ‘Click Clack Symphony’ with support from Hans Zimmer, finds closure with guidance from Al Green on the smooth seventies soul inspired ‘Goodbye Henry’, and reaches toward something greater alongside her sisters Amma and Absolutely on the uplifting ‘Joy’ as she searches to be “free of all the pain and every fear”. After the stormy opening imagery of that “rainy night” and “thunder”, RAYE eventually realizes that “the sun exists behind the clouds”, as she shares on ‘Happier Times Ahead’.
‘This Music May Contain Hope’ shows RAYE performing at her absolute peak. The album feels huge in scale and emotionally powerful, yet it remains rooted in honest experiences and real feelings. Yes, it asks a lot from the listener, but that is also what makes it so special. Every dramatic moment and musical shift feels like RAYE claiming her independence and finally creating music entirely on her own terms.
