GRAE – 7 Minutes ‘Til Heaven (2025)
Canadian indie-pop sensation GRAE’s new album, 7 Minutes ‘Til Heaven, is a daring, dreamlike descent into power, pain, and pop alchemy.
From the opening seconds, GRAE invites us into a different kind of pop landscape. The album begins not with a song, but with a spell, ‘American Dream’, voiced by none other than Apollonia (yes, of Purple Rain legacy), whose hypnotic spoken-word delivery instantly draws a curtain of mystery. It feels less like an intro and more like an invocation. This is not just a collection of songs; this is an experience.
What follows is a lush, emotionally electric body of work that blends shimmering synth-pop with sharp, intimate storytelling. On ‘Dark Energy’, GRAE sets the tone with a brooding, nocturnal groove that grips like a velvet rope. Her voice floats effortlessly between detachment and desire, channelling the haunted cool of ’80s new wave with a thoroughly modern edge. It’s a sonic night drive, cool, calculated, and undeniably magnetic.
Tracks like ‘Cha-Ching’ and ‘Motorcade’ further showcase GRAE’s evolving artistry. ‘Cha-Ching’, written after a surreal trip to Vegas, pulls back the glittering curtain on glamour and exposes the emptiness beneath the flash. It’s sarcastic, seductive, and sharp, revealing GRAE’s knack for wrapping critique in a catchy hook. Meanwhile, ‘Motorcade’ stands out as one of the album’s most haunting and poetic offerings, an imagined retelling of Jackie Kennedy’s grief that somehow feels deeply personal. It’s a moment of quiet grandeur that proves pop music can be as cinematic as any film.
Where 7 Minutes ’Til Heaven truly shines is in its emotional range. ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Scarlet’ strip the production back and turn the lens inward. On ‘Fantasy’, GRAE lays bare the pressure of performing identity in the public eye, a poignant reflection on the tension between who we are and how we’re seen. ‘Scarlet’, inspired by betrayal close to home, aches with sincerity. It’s in these moments of vulnerability that GRAE sounds most powerful, commanding the listener’s full attention with little more than her voice and truth.
Then there’s ‘God In A Woman’, a thunderous anthem of divine femininity that demands to be played loud. It’s the kind of track that doesn’t just uplift – it electrifies. There’s anger here, but also celebration. GRAE channels rage not into destruction, but into reclamation. It’s pop music as empowerment, and it’s utterly thrilling.
The album’s interludes, ‘American Dream’, ‘A(Rouse)’ and ‘Pleasure Breeds Fame’, are more than just artistic flourishes. Voiced by Apollonia, they serve as anchor points in the album’s emotional arc, offering poetic commentary on identity, fame, and the performative nature of femininity. The final track, ‘Hollywood’, is a quiet comedown, tender, reflective, and devastating in its honesty. It captures the bittersweet disillusionment that follows every high. In a world obsessed with image, GRAE dares to step into the frame and show us the whole picture.
What makes 7 Minutes ’Til Heaven such a standout is not just its sound, though the production is crisp, dreamy, and dynamic; it’s the vision. GRAE isn’t afraid to be bold, to be weird, to be devastatingly real. She refuses to play small. Instead, she offers a kaleidoscope of emotion: anger, ecstasy, longing, liberation. And through it all, her voice remains our guide: elegant, aching, assured.
Find out more about GRAE on her Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Spotify.
