WHEN HADES BURNS OVER - WHAT'S LEFT IS MARVELLOUS

Cho Gi-Seok

3 April 2026

Joshua Magazzu

Since her debut with Cry Baby in 2015, Melanie Martinez has built her entire career around concept albums, constructing immersive, narrative-driven worlds that blur the lines between music and mythology. Cry Baby gave us a porcelain-faced child navigating trauma. K-12 took that character to a sinister boarding school where conformity was enforced, and rebellion was punished. Portals transformed her entirely, reincarnating Martinez as an alien creature exploring themes of death, rebirth, and identity. Each project has arrived not just as a collection of songs, but as a fully realised universe complete with its own visual language, lore, and emotional arc.

Now, she is back with her new concept album HADES. A bold departure from the pastel-toned dreamscapes of her previous work, HADES signals a darker, more visceral chapter for Martinez. It features a central character named “Circle”, the newest popstar to come out of “Hades Tech.” A vessel through which Martinez navigates the horrors and contradictions of a crumbling world. The record is more textured than anything she has made before, drawing on soft rock, industrial pop, and a raw emotional directness that feels genuinely new. It is the first instalment of a double album, existing entirely within a dystopian universe, with an accompanying utopian record set to follow at a later date.

Very early on in the record, “IS THIS A CULT?” opens with a haunting piano intro that is spine-chilling, captivating, and deeply foreshadowing. There is an immediate sense of dread baked into the opening bars — a creeping, ceremonial tension that feels less like the beginning of a pop song and more like the opening scene of a psychological thriller. It feels like something terrible is looming just beyond the edge of the frame, and Martinez leans into that unease with complete conviction. Her vocal delivery here is ghostly and restrained, barely above a whisper at points, which makes the moments where it swells all the more powerful. Lyrically, the track toys with themes of blind devotion, manipulation, and the seductive pull of belonging to something larger than yourself — ideas that feel entirely at home in the dystopian world Martinez is building.

“POSSESSION” arrives a couple of songs into the record and immediately makes the case for why this era feels so different. It is the lead single of the project, launching the HADES campaign back in January 2026 — new year, new Melanie. Its soft-rock texture is a genuine statement of intent, signalling clearly that the music-box pop of her earlier records has been left behind. There is a warmth and openness to the production that feels fresh for Martinez — guitars that breathe, a rhythm section that drives without overwhelming, and a sense of space that gives her vocals room to settle. It carries a distinctly early-2000s feel, drawing comparisons to artists like Natalie Imbruglia in its blend of emotional rawness and melodic accessibility. It is the kind of song that feels immediately familiar yet entirely new. The outro is where the track truly distinguishes itself — distanced, muffled, talk-like vocals fade beneath the mix, creating an effect that is both deeply unsettling and quietly devastating.

Down the tracklist, “MONOLITH” stands out as perhaps the most emotionally affecting moment on the record. A sparse piano ballad, it strips away everything that makes HADES feel grand and dystopian, leaving Martinez entirely exposed — just her voice and the keys. It is a rare moment from the artist who typically communicates through character and allegory, and the directness here hits differently because of it. Her vocals sit in a higher register than usual, airy and delicate, with a fragility that feels entirely intentional — as if she is not hiding behind a persona but speaking plainly. Lyrically, the track grapples with what it means to be turned into a monument — to have your image, your art, and your pain flattened into something consumable and endlessly criticised by an audience that feels entitled to all of it. In the context of an album about dystopia and control, it lands as one of the most human and personal statements Martinez has ever made.

“THE PLAGUE” arrives as a sharp and welcome contrast to the emotional stillness of MONOLITH. Where that track strips everything back, this one bursts open — a propulsive, dance-driven production that immediately shifts the energy of the record. The chorus drop is where it truly takes flight: melodic and euphoric. Thematically, the track draws a pointed parallel between the Black Death and the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting on the shared experience of fear, isolation, and collective suffering that defined that period in recent human history. It is a bold conceptual move, and one that gives the track a weight that its euphoric sound might initially disguise. Within the broader arc of HADES, it feels like a pivotal moment — the point where Martinez’s dystopian fiction and lived reality collide most directly.

The 12th track on HADES, “BATSHIT INTELLIGENCE” is perhaps the most surreal and politically charged moment on the record. The track takes aim at the state of the world with a sharpness that feels deeply intentional: war, environmental collapse, and a society sleepwalking toward its own destruction while the men in suits who caused it remain entirely insulated from the consequences. Sound familiar ? It is a reminder that the world Martinez is imagining is not so far removed from the one we are already living in.

Opening with religious operatic singing before a dark, seductive beat kicks in, “THE VATICAN” already feels like a fan favourite. The contrast between the sacred and the profane is established within the first few seconds and never lets up — it is a track that weaponises the imagery and language of organised religion to expose the power, control, and hypocrisy that so often lurk beneath the surface of devotion. It fits seamlessly into the broader cult-like themes that run throughout HADES, adding another dimension to Martinez’s exploration of blind faith and institutional manipulation. Lyrically, it is one of the sharpest moments on the record. The line “It’s so homoerotic, the way you pray to men” is a standout — a cutting, provocative observation about the contradiction at the heart of institutions that have historically condemned queerness while simultaneously centring the worship of male figures.

“THE LAST TWO PEOPLE ON EARTH” opens with delicate, Eastern-influenced strings that feel both ancient and cinematic. As a closing track, it is a very Martinez move: intimate, a little strange, and emotionally precise. The tempo is unhurried, almost meditative, arriving like the calm after the storm of everything that has preceded it. Thematically, it is a love song set against the backdrop of total collapse — Martinez turning to her significant other and finding in that connection the only thing worth holding on to as the world around them falls apart. It is tender and darkly romantic. The dystopia does not disappear, but for a moment, it does not matter. The world around them is falling apart, and she wants to be fucked like they're the last two people on earth. SO dystopian!

HADES marks a new sound for Martinez and is her most cohesive record yet. The attention to detail is remarkable — the sound effects, transitions, and textural touches that thread through the album give it the feel of a complete, fully realised body of work. Every element feels considered. The record is long, but on reflection it has to be — the concept demands it. There are moments towards the end where a handful of tracks blur into one another, but this does not hinder the overall experience. If anything, it adds to the immersive, overwhelming quality of a world that is slowly consuming itself. This is a record that rewards repeated listening, revealing new details, new layers, and new meaning with each return. The final line — “When HADES burns over” — delivered by Martinez amongst the sounds of sirens, chaos, and explosions, is the perfect closing statement. It does not resolve anything. It simply ends, and in doing so, makes the utopian record that follows feel not just anticipated, but necessary.

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️