Bloom by Not For Radio // EP Review

- April 27, 2026

To usher in this new season of growth and renewal, María Zardoya has released Bloom, the second installment of her Not For Radio solo project. She introduced the project last Fall with her stunning debut, Melt, which is a collection deeply rooted in nature and the stillness of winter. Throughout that record, she circled the core question, "Is love worth all of the pain?" and spent the entire album grappling with the answer.

Now, María returns with a three song EP that explores what happens when she finally allows herself to fall fully into love. Once again, this project is deeply tied to nature and and the changing of seasons, this time leaning into the symbolism of Spring and likening her own personal growth to the world blooming around her physically and metaphorically.

Sonically, it lives in the same sonic universe as Melt and much of her work with The Marías, but with a noticeably more optimistic tone. It feels like such a beautiful extension of everything that has come before, while also being beautifully aligned with the new chapter of life and love she is stepping into. Bloom is filled with sweet lyricism and vivid emotion that radiates such a sense of warmth that feels like the artistic embodiment of sunshine after a long winter.

Bloom opens with the gorgeous song "Kitten", which largely represents the first step of this new chapter of life that she is carving out with this EP. It is bright and vividly written, once again rooted in the natural world in the same was Melt is, but this time even warmer and more open. "Your eyes are green just like the forest, they hold me like the morning dew," she sings in a standout line.

With its breezy, psychedelic touches, the song feels almost weightless. "Kitten" offers the first glimpse of a personal and sonic shift, one where she lets herself reach for something more hopeful and expansive than the heartbreak and fear that shaped much of her debut.

"Ache" follows, which is a largely different tone for María as she continues to embody a more hopeful energy than where she left off on her debut. She opens up about a deep desire for connection after being alone for so long. Her sense of yearning is so palpable, which is an emotion that María always tends to write with so much clarity. The song comes off like a physical manifestation of the anxieties surrounding her desire to finally let someone new into her life, to allow herself to want true love again after so much solitude.

"Running in circles, losing focus in this crippling heat, nobody knows, but there's a hole right where your heart used to be," she sings in the third verse. "I'll lay inside of it, yeah, I just wanna be held by you".

It feels like the Spring awakening of a song like "Slip" from her debut. Though that song ends on more of a melancholic note, "Ache" tends to embody something a bit brighter and more open. "When I'm awake, yeah, all I want is to reach for you," she sings in the gorgeous bridge. "Yeah, I just wanna be good to you, yeah, all I want is to reach for you".

"Living Room" closes out this brief project, in what is one of the most gorgeous songs she has ever written, which is saying something considering how naturally María can write with this very distinct softness and deep longing throughout so much of her music. To be the subject of a song like this surely feels so special. This is a beautiful depiction of what it means to fully allow yourself to fall in love with no hesitation, fully succumbing to whatever kind of fate or destiny she feels brought them together.

"You invited me there to your garden of care, as we walk through the path, I'm forgetting my past," she sings in the first verse. The vivid lyricism paints a picture so rooted in nature and grounded in that emotional shift. The entire song is so angelic and atmospheric, with lyrics that read like pure poetry when isolated away from the expansive production, as well. "Now I won't let you go because I've always known thеre was someone likе you," she sings in the gorgeous second verse. "And I want to believe that he sent you to me, here to my living room, so that I'd fall for you".

"And it goes around like this, gentle like I wished, giving you my best, you are far above the rest," is such a stunning lyric from the bridge. The parallels between "Living Room" and some of the highlights from Melt are so beautiful, especially the innate connection to "Swan" and the everlasting love she vowed to her future partner on that track, written for someone she hadn't even met yet.

At the end of "Living Room", she sings, "Don't let me down, I've come so far on my own, now that I'm not alone, there next to me, now my house is a home...I've waited for you for so long, and now that I have you, I don't know how I could live on without you". This serves as a breathtaking closing moment for this project. No matter whether it's a three song EP or a full-length album, María always knows how to write such an emotional, heart wrenching closing song and "Living Room" is especially beautiful.

At its heart, Bloom circles back to the timeless truth that love is ultimately worth the uncertainty that accompanies it, and that it really is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. This entire project feels like the embodiment of what it means to trust yourself and to have the confidence to move through the world with the personal courage to not let fear close you off from feeling. Even in its fragility, the possibility of connection outweighs the risk that it may one day come to an end.

María has said this will likely be the last project she releases as Not For Radio for a while, but hopefully this sound becomes a precursor to the new music that The Marías' bring soon. The new love and experiences that have been shaping her reality will undoubtedly continue to shape the direction their next project takes. As the snow melts and the new season begins to bloom, this EP mirrors that seasonal shift, giving way for something warmer and beautifully alive.