Building off the success of Negative Spaces as well as "Suffocate," her Grammy-nominated team-up with Knocked Loose, enigmatic, genre-bending internet sensation Poppy returns with her seventh full-length album, Empty Hands. Teamed, once again, with metalcore super producer/ex-Bring Me the Horizon keyboardist Jordan Fish, Empty Hands finds the singer/songwriter expanding her stable of collaborators as she delves deeper into the world of metalcore. More refinement than reinvention, the album ultimately reveals itself to be a darker, harder, more deliberate counterpoint to what came before.
Poppy and Fish come out swinging—literally—with the opener "Public Domain." The intro's jungle drums and animalistic electronics quickly give way to absolutely massive guitars bouncing over the beat. Poppy's higher singing register and softer timbre allow Fish and his army of guitars to take up an absurd amount of space in the mix. Fish, along with guitarists Stephen Harrison, Johnuel Hasney, Julian Gargiulo, has somehow concocted tones even heavier and thicker than those on Negative Spaces. The infectious glee of the "Public Domain," which includes the threat "The biting dogs have got the itch / The future is a seething bitch," proves short-lived as the single "Bruised Sky" doubles down on seven-string savagery while Poppy lets loose throat-shredding screams.
Somewhere between "Bruised Sky" and the follow-up single "Guardian," with its biting guitar accents and emotional chorus, the realization dawns that Poppy is going down a darker path. Where tracks like "They're All Around Us" had soaring choruses with a sense of uplift, here the guitars never let up. Musically, that glimmer of hope has all but been extinguished. While the other singles, "Unravel" and "Time Will Tell," wouldn't have been out of place on Negative Spaces both take dark, harrowing turns in the final stretches. Fans looking for another the fun of "Crystallized" and "Push Go," or even the lightness of "Vital," should look elsewhere. If Empty Hands is less fun than its predecessor, that's clearly by design. Even the interlude "Constantly Nowhere" can't make it thirty seconds without dissonance and unease creeping in.
Lyrically, the album continues to explore themes well-established across Poppy's album and lore. At the same time, there's an undercurrent of sadness running through the album, particularly in the moments of doubt and culpability. Tracks like "Public Domain" see her eyeing the familiar types of industry creeps and perpetrators she's had to endure ("Don't need to know you to know you"), while "Guardian" offers a rare moment of tenderness as she posits the willingness to fight is a kind of victory—or perhaps inspiration—in and of itself ("So keep your panicked eyes on me / 'Cause this time we have is all we need to fight eternally").
With "Dying to Forget," the album's most vicious offering, Poppy and her cohorts go on the offensive. Featuring guest guitar work from Isaac Hale (Knocked Loose), the track blurs the line between post-hardcore and more modern metalcore in a delirious fit of pure rage. Hale's presence can be felt in the restless sense of danger on display, particularly in the way the track keeps shifting from machine precision to breathless punk energy and back. Over this aural melee, Poppy takes direct aim at the men and relationships she's moved past. She holds nothing back with lines like "Is there a problem you refuse to face? / No mercy left, so you can't be saved / You could never be me for a day / We don't bleed the same."
She even serves up some sly wordplay in the chorus: "When the guilt follows you out / My idle hands will let you drown" is a clear reference to the songs "Idle Hands" and "D(r)own" by her former creative partner and ex-fiancé, Ghostemane (aka Eric Whitney). More than a fiery send-off, the outro's "End your fucking life" is also likely a reference to her other former creative and romantic partner, Titanic Sinclair (aka Corey Michael Mixter), and his alleged threats to commit suicide if she left him. That it features one of her most visceral vocal performances only further solidifies it as one of the album's standouts.
The album is at its best, and most fun, when Poppy and her team dig into their influences and reach beyond the confines of 2020s metalcore. "Eat the Hate" channels the best of producer Butch Vig with its chorused, grungy guitars and an audible sneer that would make Shirley Manson proud. A line like "God will throw an uppercut / You're celibate 'cause no one wants to fuck" brings a welcome levity to the proceedings. It's both a joy and a thrill to hear her really rub their faces in it with "Eat the hate, it makes me cum / Use your tongue to clean it up. " The track is another clear standout despite clocking in well under two minutes. "The Wait" showcases a strong Björk influence with its toy pianos, sampled drums, and zooming synths. The synth strings and layered vocals capture not just the coiled rage of Homogenic but also its icy grandeur as Poppy contemplates the turmoil of a relationship weighed against the romantic notion of everlasting love. This strong late-album run continues with "If We're Following The Light," a track that collides a gauzy, almost trip-hop verse with a more straight-ahead metalcore chorus. The command of textures highlights the deceptive subtlety lurking underneath Fish's wall of guitars.
By employing a similar "cinematic" structure to Negative Spaces (i.e., distinct "acts" broken up by interludes), Empty Hands reveals itself to be the dark mirror of what came before. Comparisons are warranted and, arguably, necessary. It's very much the Burn After Reading to its predecessor's No Country for Old Men in that way. When the album's climax finally arrives in the form of "Rib," the entire enterprise soars into the stratosphere. That uplift, withheld for much of the album, returns in full force. A nimble, triumphant mix of sweeping guitars and breakbeat electronics, "Rib" is Poppy coming out the other end, casting off the chains, and moving on to better and brighter things in complete control of her life—and her sound.
In one final zag, the album culminates on a note of crushing darkness and anger. "Empty Hands," the title track, is an all-out deathcore assault delivering the album's thesis: after everything she's been put through, those responsible are left with nothing to show for it. When she screams, "You will return with empty hands if you return at all," the line carries the weight of everything that came before it as Poppy and the entire band push themselves to the breaking point. The hilarious moment where the maelstrom pauses for Poppy to clear her throat rivals The Pretty Wild's "cough cough" breakdown in its knowing, winking absurdity. As the album comes to a thundering close, Poppy shows she still has the capacity to shock and surprise as summons something darker and more sinister than anything she's ever put to tape.
Taken together, these two albums illustrate a clear dynamic: she's flying high, and they've only managed to sink lower. Now, a decade into her career, she's able to strip away the layers and the artifice and let the music do the talking. She retains much of what's made her work stand out, but now she wields her considerable power with a clear sense of purpose and an even clearer sense of self. If Negative Spaces was the sound of Poppy finding purpose and lifting herself up, Empty Hands is the unrelenting sound of her grinding the bastards under her platform sneakers.
Empty Hands is available now via Sumerian Records.
