Ravyn Lenae - Blue Island
Can she follow up the meteoric rise?
Ravyn Lenae was catapulted into the spotlight in 2025 with the surge to virality of “Love Me Not”, the lead single of her sophomore LP, Bird’s Eye, from the year before. Now, the Chicago-born singer-songwriter takes her first full-length step as a major artist with her third album, Blue Island, released August 7th.
The sonic execution of Blue Island is largely excellent – rich, summery textures and colorful mixes that keep Ravyn Lenae’s vocals center stage and let the instrumentals flow around her. There are a couple of tracks where the instrumentals are mixed in a way that makes them feel a little thin, but they don’t break up the overall flow. The best of the production of the record is definitely found within the vocals, though – the additional layering of harmonies gives Lenae’s voice a unique feel that makes this project feel true to her. The singing performances themselves are also solid, with a real effortless silkiness present throughout.
Beyond the soundscape itself, the album stands out from her previous work with a more diverse and varied genre composition – Lenae nods to a variety of sounds throughout the tracklist, primarily within the worlds of pop, rock and R&B. Despite this variety, the album doesn’t lose cohesion for the most part – almost all the tracks maintain a ringy, 80s-inspired ambience which makes the album feel like a single project rather than just a collection of songs. The only track that clashes somewhat with this atmosphere is the first single – the Dominic Fike-assisted “Reputation”. It’s a solid track in its own right, but just doesn’t quite feel at home amongst the rest of the album. Fike’s feature is solid, outperforming a passable, but rather forgettable verse from Doechii to make him the better of the two guest artists.
As the album goes on, however, some issues do start to arise. One of those is actually with something that is usually a strong suit – the variety of genres. While mostly beneficial to the experience of the project, there are times where it starts to feel like Lenae isn’t totally sure what direction to take with this record, and so tries to reach out in several instead of committing to one thing. The biggest issue, though, is that this is far from the most memorable album. Barring a few standout tracks, such as Potential, Saturday Night or Wish You Well, it tends to blend together, particularly towards the tail end. The lyrics are sweet and well-executed for the overall largely light, romantic themes of the album, but they don’t contain anything that will stick with listeners all that much either.
Overall, Blue Island is a fine LP. It does everything right musically, has a good balance of more energetic and slower songs, and goes for some fun, versatile sounds – but it’s not an album that instantly invites repeated revisiting. It serves its purpose well, and is a decent entry into Ravyn Lenae’s discography, but it feels like more could’ve been done to make it stand out and really take it to the next level from good to great.
7.0/10
