Poppy’s journey from popstar to metalhead has been a unique one, and you’d be right to argue that her early glitch-pop style sounds nothing like her new cyberpunk hard rock sound. But every successive album of hers has worked by centering itself in a cold, metallic world, one that uses the authenticity of lullaby vocals in the same way as shrill screaming, and it’s this thread of tying your more ludicrous digital self to your living, breathing body that connects her body of work.
Empty Hands opens with a combination of pounding festival drums and glitchy digital artifacts, a fitting soundscape for the opener’s themes of a modern life becoming so bizarrely overloaded that it becomes necessary to keep your mind purely on your own heartbeat. Focusing on yourself, and validating your own experiences, angers, and beliefs are some of the core ideas of the album, and many reviewers have noted the album as Poppy’s reaction to personal feelings of betrayal by a partner. I would argue that there’s also a strong element of disillusionment, and downright hatred, with the surrounding world in the album. Metal is no stranger to social anger, and it’s impossible to thrash without drawing your energy from somewhere. But the sheer energy within the screaming, riffing, and breakneck pace of Empty Hands seems simply too intense to be the result of just relationship troubles alone. Instead the rage of lines like “Why does every loser think they’re brave?” and the imagery of “The gnashing of my teeth, thе fiddling of insanity” point the electronic maximalism of Empty Hands outward, towards any source you can justify your hatred for, be it a partner, a community, a corporation, etc. It’s one of the many features of the growing cybernetic style of rock and metal, the projection of inner turmoil onto the outer world, expressed more and more accurately by digital sounds that mirror the growing digital world.
Even at its most grinding, Poppy’s punkish anger is not without a strange sense of beauty. The vocalist knows just when to switch from breathy verse to piercing chorus—a skill she exemplifies on “Dying to Forget”, a song so vulgar and intense I can’t even throw a lyric here to back up my claim. But trust me. And besides these (admittedly, greatly satisfying) tricks, songs like “Time Will Tell” build their production more for the dance floor than the mosh pit, with each element of production getting its own heartbeat, to the point where only Poppy’s signature vocal fry can remind you this is a metal album.
With Empty Hands, Poppy puts herself at the front of a growing chorus of artists mixing hard rock, electronica, pop, and industrial—see Rina Sawayama and Ashnikko for more metallic sounds, and FKA Twigs and Slayyyter for more of the strange electropop.
Hi! My name is Jake Bennett, I'm a film and computer science student at UA. I'm also a member of WVUA's speciality show Loser Radio, an avid fan of indie rock, and a social media manager for artists!
