In late August, María Zardoya began posting a series of quiet voice notes for fans on Spotify, guiding them gently toward Not for Radio, a project she formed outside of her breakthrough band the Marías. She wanted to welcome people into an entire world she’d built — an “alternate reality,” as she describes it, where she could let intimate, deeply felt ideas about love, loss, and letting go truly unfold.
What she created is Melt, a lush, labyrinthine landscape, rooted in lessons and healing from the natural world. But to understand the weight of the album, it helps to know a little bit about the Marías own lore and discography: On the band’s last album, 2024’s stunning, blue-hued Submarine, Zardoya and her longtime partner and drummer Josh Conway had broken up, which meant that some of the music became space for processing grief and goodbyes. After working through those emotions and even going to therapy as a band, they still had their biggest year yet in 2025, scoring a hit single with “No One Noticed,” playing Coachella and collaborating with Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco.
While the band is still going strong, it’s clear there was more self-exploration and autonomy for Zardoya to discover. As Not for Radio, she takes a step on her own, feeling her way through a distinct sound and landing on her own artistic identity. There’s a bravery in that process; Zardoya has explained that she wanted to feel “uncomfortable” while making Melt, so she moved to upstate New York in the dead of winter, making it a point to take bone-chilling walks through icy woods every day and to really sit with her senses. She brought artist-producer Sam Evian and producer-instrumentalist Luca Buccellati along for the ride, working by their side on each song.
That natural setting soaks into the music. The listener gets trickles of rivers on “Slip” and dripping synths on “Puddles,” Zarodya constantly evokes crunching leaves and gliding seas and frozen lakes in confessional lyrics. All of it paints portraits of Lynchian terrain that’s dark, romantic, and ever-enthralling, with songs that feel unafraid to experiment and emote as they recall everyone from Radiohead to William Basinski to Julee Cruse. The trio lets their imaginations drift, stretching out ideas of structure and frolicking with unexpected arrangements, often mid-song.
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That playfulness works especially well on “Swan,” packed with arpeggiated synths and climbing keyboards. The song becomes a longing ballad to finding the person you’re meant to end up with, like swans in the wild, showing how Zardoya draws specific connections to the topography around her and the feelings that live deep inside her. In one voice note that she posted on Spotify, she explains the connection directly: “Lovе in nature isn’t grand, but it is simple. It’s woven into migrations in rivеrs and forest in the mushrooms sprouting from the moss, cracks and frozen lakes.”
There is a wistfulness and a longing to the process as Zardoya reveals herself as someone who loves as intensely as these songs sound. “When I Ieave, I will hold you, so far away, so far. And I’ll keep you close to me,” she sings over the spectral melodies of “Magnet.” But this is Zardoya as honest and unvarnished as the nature around her, and just like there’s a beautiful fragility in the outside world, it’s her vulnerability that makes Melt feel so powerful.
