Melanie Martinez – Hades CD

HADES is sonically structured as a dark alt-pop and electronic-pop album. Co-produced alongside her longtime collaborator CJ Baran, the album pivots drastically from the childhood-inspired toy instrumentation of her Cry Baby era into a heavy, experimental, and sinister musical landscape.  The backbone of the album relies on sleek, reverb-heavy synths, broken-glass percussion, and intense electronic beats, tracks feature sudden orchestral strings, claustrophobic glitching, and eerie horror-movie-esque scores. : Songs like "Possession" and "The Last Two People on Earth" build a cavernous, late-1980s and early-1990s alt-rock majesty driven by shimmering, distorted guitars.  Martinez utilizes her signature sweet, "cracked porcelain" vocals, but rapidly shifts them into deranged, distorted, or pitched-down layers to match the aggressive themes, while the lyrical content is intensely political and heavy, the underlying melodic pop framework keeps the 70-minute, 18-track project remarkably catchy and approachable.