The Singles Jukebox

Wrote “After the Afterparty,” not that we hold it against her…

[Video][Website]
[6.80]

Alfred Soto: The mix is febrile, not congested: except for the flurry of piano notes, no sound gets repeated. Atop is RAYE, an 18-year-old Londoner who knows what to do with syllables and sass.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: A sharp contrast of ambitions and results; RAYE’s mumbly, rushed delivery leads to so much of whatever she’s trying to say becoming a blurry hum. It’s a fascinating counterpoint to the fluttery arpeggiated synths on the background trying to enhance the drama — and that’s before we get to the first key-change/pitchshift. Suddenly “Shhh” is all ramping tension, unease, the inverted mutant cousin of the “…Baby One More Time” piano effect purposefully jarring and the vocal refrigerator buzz digging further and further at the edges of your eye socket. When we eventually get to the chorus, that synth’s now growling in flanged-out distortion in one pocket, then we land in another pocket of hushed-up vacuum tightness…. In some ways, this record feels like an attempt to revitalize early-’00s pop, a progged-out and over-adrenalized cousin to Ashanti’s “Only You.” But the result is a reanimated body that buzzes and seizes with an artificial pulse. It’s a bristling, twitching, defective thing, but it’s alive, it’s alive!
[6]

Will Rivitz: Combine Katy B’s melancholy, Chris Lorenzo’s wonkier side, early brostep’s low-end muscle, and Fifth Harmony’s electronicky swagger, and you might end up with something like this. The chorus comes out of nowhere with the force of a freight train and the stomp of a hydraulic press, and its Glitch-Mobby wobbles and kicks are delectable.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: A pop lookbook, practically: Max Martin circa “…Baby One More Time,” Max Martin circa “Problem,” Destiny’s Child circa “Survivor,” Kanye West circa 808s & Heartbreak. And though I can’t help thinking it’s one of those lookbooks where you order a skirt and it arrives a month later made of disappointing beanbag chair fabric — non-metaphorically, that I’m being overimpressed by a Brit School version of LIZ — it sounds pretty damn great now.
[8]

Megan Harrington: Perfectly serviceable; you could dance to “Shhh,” but it’s probably better used as the soundtrack to a club scene in a teen drama. 
[5]

Katie Gill: RAYE is serving up some early-2000s girl pop level realness, which I am 100% here for. That sparse backing during the verses is AMAZING, as the song builds up to a spectacular crescendo — that is instantly undercut as everything drops out to the “shhh.” I love that the song plays with volume and backing. I don’t love that it only works a good two-thirds of the time.
[7]

Dorian Sinclair: I’m a complete sucker for dancey pop with weirdly dark and macabre underpinnings. There are much better songs in that category than “Shhh,” but I’m still basically primed to like it. I like the sparseness under the first verse, and I really enjoy the rattling, unresolved final seconds. I could have done without the key change, which feels pretty extraneous.
[6]

Iain Mew: Despite sounding slightly like ABBA’s “SOS” if it replaced a big chorus with a collapse into early-’00s industrial sound effects, RAYE brings an intensity and way of reveling in the ugly details that keeps it more than fresh.
[8]

Will Adams: “Shhh” is utterly arresting, in that each section shakes you around the second you get comfortable in it. In the verses, it’s via key changes and piano stabs. In the chorus, it’s via 2000s R&B synth strings sharpened into razors trading off with clamped percussion breaks. RAYE, full of acid and menace, only heightens the song’s demented nightmare that much more.
[8]

Ramzi Awn: The aggressive creativity on “Shhh” is admirable, but RAYE could stand to listen to Ray BLK and chill out.  
[4]