Song Review:: Raina (After School): Almost Love

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  • Release date: 2026 February 05
  • Album tracklist: Almost Love, Almost Love - Inst.
  • Album runtime: 4 minutes

 I can't believe I almost missed this! I'm disappointed by the barely two minute runtime, although a better word would be horrified, but she is one of the group's main vocalists, the group's first soloist, and because of how bad Pledis can be at managing and promoting their groups, especially their two earliest ones, I never know how familiar people are with them as a group, if not as soloists even if none of them are with Pledis anymore. I'm excited to share her voice with you. She also did recently call out and condemn stalking behavior she's been experiencing, so good for her. 

This is a very chill instrumental. It's a lot of guitar with a very soft overlay because of the chimes. This is kind of putting me to sleep a little bit. Not that that's particularly difficult right now given how tired I am, but in general, this is just a calm instrumental. It is a little background musicky, which I don't particularly like, but it's not as bad as it could be.

Okay. Let's see how much of this two-minute song has her voice. Well, vocally this matches the instrumental a lot. She's very breathy through much of it, which makes the contrast when she strengthens up her voice that much more intriguing. It just really does not happen enough to be much more than a tease of what she can do with her voice. But. I know that there are a lot of people who like this style. So even though I'm personally sighing over this (although we still get hints of her vibrato even with how mild the song is, so I'm taking that as a win), there are going to be people who like this a lot better than I do. But, it's fine. I'm just happy she's releasing music.

If I hadn't been so late in doing this, I wouldn't have had this live clip for you instead of just the track.



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