Denver artist Riah pairs her debut-length album with a provocative feminist stage production exploring revenge, desire, power, and the cost of silence.
Photo by D. Lucs
DENVER, CO – Denver-based artist Riah announces the release of Insurrection, her debut-length album, alongside Medusa’s Curse, a full-scale live production from DejaView Productions that transforms the record’s themes of rage, desire, survival, and empowerment into a visceral theatrical experience. The album arrives September 13, 2026, with the live production bringing its mythology-inspired world to the stage at Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom.
Dark, sensual, confrontational, and theatrical, Insurrection is a reckoning with debt, devotion, power, and the question of who ultimately pays the price. Written and produced by Riah with Mitchell “Merch” Cohen at Dreamspace Studios, the ten-song collection moves between survival, appetite, desire, accountability, and verdict. Across tracks Riah inhabits characters and perspectives shaped by systems of control, personal betrayal, capitalism, patriarchy, and the complicated relationship between victimhood and power.
The album’s sound sits at the intersection of dark pop, industrial pop, and alternative pop, drawing comparisons to artists such as Rosenfeld, Not a Toy, Nine Inch Nails, TANERELLE, and Ramsey. Rather than simply documenting personal experiences, Riah uses the album as a larger narrative vehicle. One that turns pain into spectacle, desire into confrontation, and the mythology of Medusa into a modern story about women reclaiming the power they have been taught to fear.
“Writing an album and building a show at the same time changes both. The songs stopped being about me and started being about Medusa, and somewhere in there I stopped being able to tell the difference.”- RIAH.
That connection between music and performance is central to Insurrection. Every song on the album scores Medusa’s Curse, DejaView Productions’ feminist retelling of the Medusa myth. Co-produced by Riah and Luna Cash of DejaView Productions, the full-length production expands the album into a live experience featuring live snakes, fire dancers, aerialists, live music, and immersive stage production.
“Medusa’s story is 3,000 years old and it’s the same story women are still telling,” Riah says. “That’s not a coincidence, that’s a pattern. Insurrection is what it sounds like when you finally name the pattern.”
The album’s songs become different facets of that story. “Faith” examines the complicated weight of carrying another person’s pain. “Self Help” takes aim at consumerism and the endless cycle of earning, spending, and chasing more. “Lestat” embraces dangerous desire through a vampiric lens, while “Apolitical” confronts the consequences of looking away until violence becomes impossible to ignore. “Collectors” delivers an ominous reckoning for those who believe their debts can remain unpaid, and “Medusa” ultimately transforms the myth’s curse into a source of strength.
The record also features a cover of Alanis Morissette’s “Uninvited,” a familiar wound positioned within the album’s larger narrative, the emotional tension the rest of Insurrection spends its runtime answering.
With Insurrection and Medusa’s Curse, Riah is building more than a debut album cycle. She is creating a unified world where music, mythology, theatricality, and feminist storytelling collide. The result is designed not simply to be heard, but experienced: a dark-pop insurrection that asks what happens when the monster in the story stops apologizing for surviving.
Photo by Mikaela Meredith
About Riah:
Riah, a rising force in the Bedroom Pop scene, is crafting introspective and evocative music that resonates with the complexities of love, sex, loss, and a distinctive “villain energy.” Drawing from personal life experiences, Riah channels deep emotion into every lyric and melody, creating an intimate connection with listeners.
Starting in the Los Angeles entertainment industry at the tender age of 17, Riah faced the harsh realities of the pre-Me Too era, which fueled her desire for autonomy and control over her artistic vision. After years of enduring the industry’s darker side, she stepped back, determined to return to music only on her own terms. Now, as an accomplished entrepreneur, Riah has reclaimed her voice and is ready to make waves with a fresh and authentic sound.
In addition to her musical journey, Riah has captivated audiences at numerous festivals, clubs, and acoustic venues. Her passion for performance extends beyond music, as she is also a competitive pole dancer, having won in her division and heels categories in the prestigious PSO Mountain competition in 2023.
With a unique blend of vulnerability and power, Riah is poised to leave a lasting impact on the music world, bringing a new level of depth and intensity to the Bedroom Pop genre.
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