Some albums feel like collections of songs, and then there are albums that feel like living, breathing worlds. Herman Martinez’s UltraTerrestrial belongs firmly in the latter. Written, performed, and imagined entirely by Martinez, this record is more than music, it’s an exploration of memory, chaos, and the strange frequencies that hover just beyond everyday life. Produced, mixed, and mastered with precision by Ahmed Mahmoud and engineered by Chase Cassara, the album is polished yet never loses its raw, restless core.
What makes UltraTerrestrial so compelling is its ability to be both intimate and cosmic at once. Martinez describes the record as “a collection of forgotten dreams and memories you didn’t know you had,” and that phrase lingers in the mind as you listen. The songs invite you to wander through shadowy corridors of nostalgia, with melodies that feel both familiar and utterly alien.
The lead single, Changeling, is the kind of track that pulls you in immediately. It’s a song about not recognizing yourself, about looking into the mirror and seeing someone, or something else staring back. Martinez’s delivery is haunting, almost like a dialogue with a ghost of his own making. The instrumentation balances grit with atmosphere, wrapping the listener in a cocoon of shifting identity. It’s unsettling but magnetic, the kind of song you want to replay just to untangle its layers.
If Changeling deals with self-recognition, then Sol looks outward toward creation itself. Built on expansive soundscapes, the track feels like a slow sunrise, the kind that blinds you with light but also fills you with awe. Martinez taps into something deeply primal here: the human urge to make, to shape, to bring something into existence. The song grows with each passage, swelling with textures that shimmer and pulse, until it becomes less of a track and more of a meditation on the act of creation itself.
Where Sol is luminous, Uncanny Valley is jagged, tense, and eerie. This is Martinez at his most experimental, blurring the line between human and machine. The track plays with discomfort in the best way, layering rhythms that almost trip over themselves and melodies that feel like they’re just slightly “off”—not broken, but skewed. It mirrors the concept of the uncanny valley perfectly: the strange disquiet that comes when something feels almost human, but not quite. It’s bold, challenging, and shows Martinez’s fearless willingness to dive into uncomfortable territory.
Then there’s Origins, a track that feels like a heartbeat beneath the album’s skin. The track is quieter than the others but no less powerful. Martinez delivers it with a sense of reverence, and the arrangement builds like a memory slowly surfacing from the depths. Listening to Origins feels like being guided back to the place where all stories begin, whether that’s a personal memory or something much larger.
Taken together, these songs embody what UltraTerrestrial sets out to do: open doorways into unseen worlds. Martinez has crafted an album that thrives on contrasts, chaos and beauty, light and shadow, recognition and disorientation. There’s a sense of urgency in his performances, as if these songs had to be released before they consumed him from the inside out.
In a music landscape often crowded with predictable formulas, UltraTerrestrial stands apart as a rare and fearless creation. It’s messy in moments, polished in others, but always brimming with sincerity and vision. Martinez has given us not just an album, but a map—one that leads us through forgotten dreams, strange frequencies, and the parts of ourselves we rarely stop to face.
This is a journey. And like all good journeys, UltraTerrestrial leaves you changed.