Ray Noir doesn't write tunes he makes survival sound like a war cry. On his scorching new single "Razorblade Romance," the queer POC singer takes the anguish, the defiance, and the raw emotion of life as an outsider and fashions something magnetic.
The track isn't about roses and chocolates. It's about bleeding for your identity and keeping your head held high. Grammy-winner Steve Stevens's razor-sharp guitar (Billy Idol / Top Gun Anthem) supports "Razorblade Romance," punctured from the first note. It combines the grit of industrial rock with a type of openness that isn't often the focus in the genre. For Ray, who came of age in Norway's stiflingly masculine metal culture, the song is part confession, part catharsis.
A somber funeral march underpins the heavy drums and searing guitar lines, but it's not defeatism. It is about how they tried to kill me with shame. I lived anyway.
Its very title is a gut punch. "Razorblade Romance" inverts the paradigm of traditional love songs and redirects love's gaze inward on the self, on what we're worth, on making it through, and on the type of strength that queer people are so often made to cultivate in silence. Ray's message is simple for anyone within the alt scene, you've ever felt as if you didn't fit in. You're not alone, and your story is essential.