Sam Fang
Melanie Martinez has spent much of her career building worlds. From the pastel playgrounds and unsettling childhood imagery of Cry Baby to the extraterrestrial rebirth on PORTALS, her albums have never simply been collections of songs. They are chapters in a mythology, each one giving Martinez another character, another aesthetic and, increasingly, another way to examine the world around her.
HADES is where that world gets considerably darker. Following the sonic experimentation of PORTALS, Martinez continues pushing herself into stranger, heavier territory, but this time the darkness isn’t primarily internal. HADES looks outward. Capitalism, beauty standards, organized religion, poverty, climate change, misogyny, online toxicity and the increasingly dystopian world around us become her subjects. The result is an album that feels considerably more mature than her earliest work, while still sounding unmistakably like the artist who made it and that fans have grown to love.
That maturation is perhaps the most interesting thing about HADES. Martinez hasn’t abandoned the theatricality, eccentricity or fantastical storytelling that made her famous. Instead, she’s finally using those tools to say something about the world beyond herself. And it works…mostly.
Welcome to Hell
The transition from PORTALS into HADES is practically seamless. “Garbage” opens with birdsong before giving way to an industrial soundscape, creating the sense that we’re being transported directly from one of Martinez’s previous worlds into something considerably more sinister. It’s an immediately effective introduction, both sonically and thematically, and a wonderful showcase of her ability to make her albums feel connected rather than simply sequential.
More importantly, the lyrics make it clear almost immediately that HADES has bigger things on its mind than the interpersonal and coming-of-age themes that dominated much of Cry Baby. This isn’t simply Martinez growing older. It’s her looking around at the world she’s grown into and deciding she doesn’t particularly like what she sees.
The second track, “Is This A Cult?”, is where the album truly comes alive. With an infectious beat and imaginative storytelling, it’s one of the record’s earliest standouts and feels like the moment HADES establishes its identity. “Garbage” is the doorway into this new world from PORTALS, but “Is This A Cult?” is where the doors slam shut behind you and you realize there’s no escape.
“Possession,” meanwhile, is a safer proposition. As the album’s lead single, it’s polished and radio-friendly without being particularly daring by her own standards. That’s not necessarily a criticism. For listeners who may have been intimidated by PORTALS more experimental tendencies, “Possession” provides an easier entry point into this next stage of her sound. It’s familiar enough to welcome new listeners without completely abandoning what came before.
Then she starts swinging, and thank God for that.
Melanie Has Something to Say – And She’s Not Speaking in Circles
“White Boy With a Gun” is exactly as pointed as its title suggests. Martinez takes aim at people who would rather dismiss social and political issues than engage with them, delivering her commentary with the kind of wit that keeps the song from becoming preachy. Given Martinez’s audience, however, it feels less like an attempt to convince anyone and more like a knowing commentary directed at people who are already listening. It’s good enough, but she knows she can push the envelope further, and the rest of HADES proves that.
“Disney Princess” takes a more fascinating route. Fame, identity and innocence collide as Martinez examines the way the entertainment industry commodifies women. Coming from an artist who herself entered the public eye through The Voice, the subject carries an added layer of personal relevance. It’s catchy enough to be immediately accessible, but there’s something considerably more uncomfortable lurking underneath its sugary surface.
That tension continues on “Grudges,” where Martinez taps into feminine rage and the courage required to finally leave a bad situation behind. The heavier rock influence gives the album another welcome sonic shift, and its chorus is an absolute earworm. Still, it’s difficult for the song to command attention when HADES has so many bigger ideas competing for the spotlight.
That problem disappears with “Monopoly Man,” one of the album’s undeniable highlights. Martinez’s commentary on capitalism and the problems it creates provides an important turning point for the record. Suddenly, the darkness isn’t just aesthetic. There is a very real-world anger underneath it, and HADES begins to feel less like a fantasy descent into hell and more like an allegory for the world we’re already living in.
Then, somewhat unfortunately, the album hits the brakes.
HADES Taps the Breaks Just When It Gets Off the Ground
“Avoidant” is a beautiful song, but its placement is puzzling. Coming after the momentum of “Monopoly Man,” its slower pace brings HADES almost to a standstill. The lyrics deserve more attention than the track may initially receive, but within the album’s sequencing, it risks feeling like a skip.
“Monolith” continues that slower stretch, focusing on hurt, loneliness and longing. It’s another emotionally effective moment, although the back-to-back slower tracks make the middle of HADES feel somewhat less cohesive than its opening run.
Fortunately, “Weight Watchers” jolts the album back to life. It’s difficult to imagine a more perfectly executed piece of commentary on dieting culture and beauty standards. Martinez has always had an interest in the relationship between identity and appearance, but here she attacks the machinery behind those insecurities with remarkable precision. It’s biting, uncomfortable and absolutely fantastic.
“The Plague” shifts the focus toward the COVID-19 pandemic and the ways people reacted to it. There’s an understandable feeling that the subject arrives somewhat late — we’re several years removed from the worst of the pandemic — but that doesn’t make the observations any less recognizable. For anyone who actually lived through those years, the song taps into a shared cultural memory that remains surprisingly fresh.
Martinez Knows The World Is Going to Hell
Unsurprisingly, “The Plague” pushes HADES further from the mortal realm into antagonizing levels of inferno. “Batshit Intelligence” is gorgeous in the way only a truly depressing song can be. Martinez turns her attention toward the wealthy and an increasingly dystopian society, with the lyrics doing most of the heavy lifting. It’s another example of HADES finding power when Martinez lets her songwriting carry the weight rather than relying solely on the sonic atmosphere, though the cacophonous world of HADES is stunning in its own right.
The album immediately follows with “Gutter,” which continues the thought by examining homelessness, poverty and the ways capitalism has made basic comfort increasingly inaccessible. It’s not an easy listen, nor is it supposed to be. The directness can be uncomfortable, but that’s part of the point. HADES isn’t interested in allowing its audience to sit comfortably in the not-so-fantasy world it has created.
“Uncanny Valley” offers an intriguing companion piece to “Weight Watchers.” Where that song examines the societal pressures placed upon women to conform to beauty standards, “Uncanny Valley” explores the other side: the desire to be beautiful, desirable and sexually attractive.
It’s sassy and powerful, but more importantly, it’s revealing. Martinez gives us a glimpse into her own complicated relationship with beauty and desirability, and as usual, the results are more fascinating than a straightforward statement about the subject would have been. Along with “Weight Watchers”, these two tracks feel like bookends of a social justice megaphone, offering a refreshing but bleak message to the world.
And then comes the album’s masterpiece.
Enter the Vatican
“The Vatican” is HADES at its absolute best.
The religious imagery is salacious, provocative and wonderfully theatrical, but what makes the song work is that Martinez isn’t simply attacking religion itself. Instead, she takes aim at the failures, contradictions and coverups of organized religion. There’s a difference, and the song understands it.
It’s a powerful use of religious symbolism as a weapon, with Martinez wielding uncomfortable truths rather than cheap provocation. Everything comes together here: the lyricism, the darkness, the theatricality and the album’s larger social commentary. If there is one song that encapsulates what makes HADES work, this is it.
From there, the album quite literally descends further into hell, but in the best way. “Hell’s Front Porch” turns its attention toward climate change, adding another issue to Martinez’s growing list of societal grievances. It isn’t necessarily the album’s strongest song, but its inclusion makes the record’s larger purpose increasingly clear. Martinez isn’t interested in limiting her commentary to one particular issue. She’s painting a portrait of a world that feels increasingly broken.
And apparently, the trolls are going down with it. “Chatroom” finds Martinez confronting online trolls, incels and the assorted digital monsters lurking behind anonymous usernames. It’s one of the album’s funniest moments, allowing her sense of humor to come back to the forefront, which will be a welcome relief to fans of Cry Baby who might balk at how intense HADES gets. Rather than becoming another grim lecture about the internet, she turns the whole thing into a self-aware bop about fighting back.
It’s a welcome reminder that even when Martinez is singing about hell, she still knows how to have fun there.
Its The End of the World As We Know It
Then comes “The Last Two People on Earth.” It’s hard to imagine a better ending. The song feels like the culmination of everything HADES has been building toward: the world is collapsing, the descent is complete, and all that’s left is the question of what — and who — matters when everything else disappears.
Martinez’s vocals sit beautifully against the increasingly apocalyptic production, creating the sensation of watching the world burn from a distance while desperately clinging to another person. The song’s central desire — to remain together no matter what happens — gives the album an unexpectedly tender conclusion.
After spending much of HADES cataloging everything wrong with the world, Martinez ends by focusing on something that might actually be worth saving. It’s stunning.
In the end, HADES isn’t perfect. Its sequencing occasionally works against it, particularly during the slower stretch of “Avoidant” and “Monolith,” and some songs inevitably feel less substantial beside the album’s biggest statements. But those shortcomings don’t diminish what Martinez accomplishes here.
More importantly, HADES represents a meaningful evolution. The Melanie Martinez of Cry Baby was fascinated with childhood, innocence, relationships and the strange process of growing up. PORTALS represented a dramatic sonic rebirth, pushing her further into surrealism and experimentation. HADES takes that evolution one step further by asking what happens when that child grows up and looks at the world around her.
The answer is anger. But it is also humor, sexuality, vulnerability, political awareness and, ultimately, hope.
Martinez has created another elaborate world, but this time the monsters aren’t imaginary. They’re capitalism, misogyny, climate change, religious institutions, beauty standards, poverty and the people screaming into their keyboards from anonymous chatrooms. HADES simply gives them a fantastical setting in which to expose themselves.
It’s a fantastic step forward for Martinez; darker, more ambitious and considerably more mature without sacrificing the strange, theatrical identity that made her music so compelling in the first place.
Highly recommended.
