Guardian
Out Now
Words by Ali Williams
Poppy’s latest offering, Empty Hands, lands like a velvet-gloved punch—glistening, cryptic, and as genre-agnostic as your favourite playlist after a heavy night out. If you’re new to Poppy’s world, prepare for whiplash; if you’re an old hand, well, your neck’s already used to it.
The first track sprints out of the gate with industrial beats, razor-sharp guitar lines, and vocals that veer from ice queen to punk banshee in the space of a chorus. Think Nine Inch Nails fronted by a pop star raised on Sailor Moon and Slipknot.
Guttersnipe is all dirty bass and synth scuzz—one part goth disco, one part dystopian TED talk. The lyrical hooks bite hard: “Hold my empty hands, watch me drop the weight,” she croons, tossing existential dread around like confetti at a doomed birthday party.
Holy Machine is where Poppy truly flexes her ability to make nihilism sound like a banger. There are moments that recall her I Disagree era, but with sharper teeth and more bite. The chorus is stadium-sized and you can practically hear the mosh pits forming.
Mirror Ritual slows things down, but don’t call it a ballad—this is more séance than slow dance, with ghostly harmonies and an electronic backbone that pulses like a heart left in the microwave too long. It’s beautiful and unsettling—a Poppy signature.
As always, Poppy’s lyrics are a masterclass in existential double-talk. On Empty Hands, she’s letting go of the baggage—yours, hers, society’s, that weird suitcase you’ve never unpacked since 2020. There’s a thread of defiance: this is an album about making peace with nothingness, and dancing on the ruins with eyeliner still perfect.
But it’s not all doom and gloom, Candy Teeth offers a sugar-rush chorus over a riff that sounds suspiciously like a robot learning to play Black Sabbath and then Hearts on Pause takes the classic break-up song and feeds it through a paper shredder, emerging as a strangely optimistic industrial pop gem.
Defining the genre of this album isn’t straight forward, Cyber-metal? Bubblegum doom-pop? Industrial nu-rave? Look, at this point, trying to label Poppy’s sound is like herding glitter—messy and ultimately futile. It’s more than ‘round peg square hole’, it’s all of the boxes. It’s “I’m a motherfucking triangle that identifies as a hexagonal octagon living in a world of circles and squares.” Producer Titanic Sinclair (and a guest slot from a certain masked guitarist we won’t spoil) keeps things sharp, shiny, and just the right amount of unhinged.
Empty Hands is Poppy at her most Poppy: boundaryless, playful, and sharp as a nail in a birthday cake. It’s the sound of an artist gleefully sawing through the legs of genre conventions, then using them as drumsticks. Is it for everyone? Absolutely not—and thank the gods for that.
But if you want an album that grabs you by the collar, drags you through a neon-lit haunted house, and leaves you humming existential one-liners on the way out, Empty Hands is your ticket. Put it on, turn it up, and let Poppy fill your empty hands with noise, sass, and just a little bit of chaos.
For fans of Grimes if she went goth, Nine Inch Nails in a tutu, or anyone who likes their pop music with a sledgehammer and a smirk. Signing off before Poppy hacks the mainframe and rewrites this review herself. See you in the pit.
