I’ve wondered idly over the years what would happen if you combined thrash metal/industrial with pop sensibilities. Pop has a habit of cannibalizing other genres; rock, R&B, hip-hop, jazz and techno have all been devoured to some extent or another by pop’ s endlessly hungry maw. This is both an extremely metal way of describing it and, admittedly, betraying my anti-pop sentiments. I like pop here and there, but politically I can’t help but despise the inherently consumeristic nature both in how it sands off the edges of counter-culture movements and devours them alive, and how mainstream pop is more about putting more money in the hands of the rich and using tried-and-true methods than it is about forming something new.

At the same time, pop has been more successful with some genres than others — pop-punk, after all, is a broad spectrum that includes bands that hit the mainstream without doing much to their sound at all — and the only industrial or heavy acts to have really been considered ‘mainstream’ in my lifetime are Metallica, Manson, NIN and Slipknot. (And these are stretching it; ask a Swiftie to name a Slipknot song.) It’s why I’ve been so impressed with Billie Eilish’s output — not necessarily because she herself is producing heavy music, but because the thick, atmospheric gothic elements in things like ‘bury a friend’ and ‘you should see me in a crown’ are borrowing just as much from darkwave and later-industrial as they are from modern pop music.

And then.

And then there is Poppy.

I will fully acknowledge that the way has been laid for Poppy by others — Lady Gaga, for example, has been taking influence from hard rock and heavy metal since the days of the Fame Monster, and Evanescence is an almost overwhelmingly-influential figure in female-fronted gothic music. There’s Emilie Autumn, The Dresden Dolls– But one thing that pop music has never been particularly receptive to, and indeed the metal scene took a long time to improve upon, was the figure of a female singer not just as an ethereal, operatic siren drifting above intense music (played, of course, by men) but a shrieking or screaming Fury in her own right. I’m old enough — and I’m not that old — to remember Flyleaf and In This Moment breaking barriers for women in metal, and it makes Poppy’s superstardom that much sweeter. For Poppy began with songs like ‘Bleach Blonde Baby” and “Girls in Bikinis” — fun, synth-heavy pop that’s openly queer (Poppy identifies as ‘questioning/undefined’ but Girls in Bikinis is certainly for the bisexuals, if nothing else). Any reasonable pop manager would have seen a girl like this and figured they had the next Katy Perry on their hands, not the next Maria Brink or Trent Reznor.

This isn’t Poppy’s first metal album by far. The switch to harder music came (from what I understand in retrospect) rather suddenly, with 2020’s I Disagree. She doubled down on the weirdness with follow up Music to Scream To, which has six tracks all called ‘Scream’ with varying numbers of final ‘m’s. (1. Scream, 2. Screamm, 3. Screammm, etc.) Flux (2021) and Zig (2023) have been further steps in the maturing process, mixing metal and industrial stylings with her existing pop sensibilities. It’s on negative spaces (2024) that her songwriting and melodies take a sudden sharp upwards climb — which is not an insult on her prior work at all. Her output in four years dwarfs many bands that have been around for twice as long as her, and that’s without accounting for the mid-career genre shift — or the fact that as of this year, she’s only 31 years old.

So after all of that prelude, we come to Empty Hands, the first Poppy album I’ve listened to as it came out and in its entirety. Right from the first track (Public Domain), the lyricism that’s always impressed me is on full display and in constant improvement — “Isn’t it peculiar how the chatter fails to offer any solace in the light of the truth?” is one of the most rhythmically satisfying lines I’ve run into in a while. The cynical bite to Poppy’s lyrics has always reminded me of Icon for Hire and Metric among others, and after the last year or so it certainly hits that much stronger.

If “Public Domain” is an industrial-pop banger of an opening track, “Bruised Sky” follows it up with death/thrash metal that reminds me of early In This Moment and lets Poppy show off her screamed vocals. I don’t know whether or not she was using filters on prior albums, but they’re even more visceral on this one — she’s clearly been practicing a ton, and I commend her for it. (They were good before! It’s just noticeable how different they sound.) Even with the fantasy stylings of this track, the despairing mood stays, establishing a theme for the whole album. Unfortunately, as much as Guardian has all the pieces to capture me, I found it much less interesting than the first two — that said, I chalk that up to being a fan from the established metal side rather than the pop side. I’ve heard melody breakdowns like this one a dozen times before, and Poppy sounds like she’s at the top of her range with the chorus — which is puzzling because I don’t think she is.

I do really really like the short track “Constantly Nowhere”, which leads into “Unravel”. I enjoy “bridge” tracks and it shows an awareness of album structure that immediately makes me pay more attention to how it’s put together. I also genuinely love “Unravel” — while it has the same strange straining as “Guardian”, it works well for the desperation of this particular ballad. The screamed vocals on the bridge are a nice touch, too, anchoring it just before the end. “Dying To Forget” Is just awesome. (It feels a bit like showing off, but like, she’s allowed.) Not to bring gender back into it, but I’m always happy every time a female artist does a “I am going to fucking kill you and I won’t feel bad about it :)” song. I support female wrongs.

I’d probably like “Time Will Tell” more in another position on the album, although lyrically I understand why it is where it is. Musically, though, it feels like a step down after “Dying To Forget” — that said, it is a great song. I’m increasingly struck with the perception that Poppy’s less comfortable in the higher ranges than she is in the lower ranges and screaming, but it could just be that I like the vocal style she uses in higher ranges less.

And now we come to the incredibly hot “Eat the Hate”. What can I possibly say about this song that it isn’t so very clearly saying itself? It’s a beautiful anti-hater song that flips off incels and manages to be SUPER horny about it as well. “The Wait” is a gorgeous ballad as a foil to it, where Poppy disentangles herself from someone who she’s trying to let down gently but firmly. It’s interesting as one of the few songs on the album with no screaming at all, and sitting in Poppy’s lower range almost completely. It leads into, “If We’re Following The Light”, which is a fairly standard thrash-industrial song and feels like a bit of a retread of “Guardian”. (Potentially deliberately, but the throughline isn’t immediately obvious to me.)

“Blink” is more obviously a reference back to “Constantly Nowhere”, and the line “I’ll keep you under my ribs” is such a lovely little line that I didn’t immediately clock it as a reference to the next song until I looked at the playlist. (Another note on this album — the flow from one song to next is beautiful.) Sadly, “Ribs” is another song that doesn’t feel as inspired as it could, reminding me of the rest of the album before it instead of doing something new. Again, this is possibly deliberate, but it doesn’t feel deliberate — which is a huge problem with what may or may not be a concept album.

“Empty Hands” is a bold move as a closer track; it’s another mostly harsh-vocal track, to the point where it’s a surprise when her clean vocals cut in for a brief moment. Both the instrumentation and lyrics are lacking on this one, though, ending up in a wall of noise without too much active distinction. It’s a strange collapse for the title track and ending song.

Ultimately, Empty Hands is a really, really solid album — the first half, with a few under-par songs, is a great listen. After ‘The Wait’, though, the songs start to get repetitive and less interesting. As a whole, too, the album gains sonic coherency at the trade-off of Poppy’s usual unpredictability and experimentation — and I’m not sure it gains enough coherency (i.e. as a concept album) for it to be a worthy trade. Still, hearing Poppy’s songwriting and singing chops mature with every album is a gift, and it is a privilege in and of itself to be able to say “yeah, this girl with Billboard Top 40 songs let out a metalcore album that’s only good, and not great”. Imagine telling my 15 year old self that. I think he’d pass out on the spot.

Want to support my work? Find me on SubscribeStar, where you can get all my posts early!