Comes on ultra clear vinyl LP. Limited Edition signed jacket copy and includes a flex disc with bonus track.
Submarine is the second full-length studio album by American indie pop band The Marías, released in 2024.
The Marías have stood out since their inception, releasing their first EPs, Superclean Vol. I and Superclean Vol. II, in 2017 and 2018, respectively, paired with stunning red and black visuals that might as well have been from a Pedro Almodóvar movie. The band’s sound is a genre-bending mix of indie, electronic, and even reggaetón, with lyrics in both English and Spanish. That last part is perhaps why, in a saturated market, The Marías have grown a not-so-niche loyal fan base that exists in the in-between—just like Zardoya, who was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Georgia. “I think our music and what we do is naturally [bilingual] because it’s just naturally how I am and how I grew up,” she explains. “I also understand the responsibility of what that is and how important that is, and I take that seriously.”
Painted in a moody blue aesthetic, Submarine opens submerged in “Ride,” like a voice speaking from the underworld, backed by a rash bass and an angry synth that means business. But it quickly takes a turn into an airier feel with “Hamptons,” a psychedelic funk tune that has you wondering whether to cry or dance, or both. “If you’re crying, you’re dancing. If you’re not dancing, you’re crying,” Zardoya jokes. The album’s fourth track and first single, “Run Your Mouth,” delivers a certified-classic anthemic chorus to play in honor of haters and gossipers, both strangers and known: “Always run your mouth / I don’t wanna listen.”
Submarine’s second single and first Spanish-language song (of two), “Lejos de Ti,” finds Zardoya begging her lover to not forget her, even if they’re apart, with the screeching longing of an old-school bolero. In the video, she’s naked, wrapped in freezing snow, a stark image of desolate sadness. The narrator resigns herself to her sorrow in a piano ballad fit for the end of La La Land on the album’s second-to-last track, “If Only” (on which Conway’s family friend Tom Waits is credited as a co-writer): “Even when I dream / You are next to me / I can’t fall asleep / If only.”You need only look at the album’s cover to know it’s not a light listen: Zardoya is submerged in water so blue, I believe it to be the color our darkest days must feel. “I just wanted a really, really drastic change, and a color that represented grief and loneliness, but also exploration and hope and rebirth,” Zardoya says of Submarine’s blue and black palette. The dark reds of Cinema, in contrast, represented a universe that was sultrier, more romantic, and more, well, cinematic. The singer says her choice to go blue was inspired by Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours trilogy, whose three psychological dramas are respectively painted in blue, white, and red. The color blue is used differently throughout the first film, Zardoya explains, just like it is on Submarine, to represent various stages of the lead character’s journey through loneliness and grief, and ultimately optimism and hope. (source www.harpersbazzar.com)
