Band:	Poppy
Album:	Negative Spaces
Style:	Electropop, Alternative metal
Release date:	November 15, 2024
A review by:	RaduP

01. Have You Had Enough?
02. The Cost of Giving Up
03. They're All Around Us
04. Yesterday
05. Crystallized
06. Vital
07. Push Go
08. Nothing
09. The Center's Falling Out
10. Hey There
11. Negative Spaces
12. Surviving On Defiance
13. New Way Out
14. Tomorrow
15. Halo

Remember when Poppy playing metal was a novelty?

Most of the bands that I find, I find specifically because I'm searching for music, because they're playing live around me, because they're in some soundtrack of something I watched, and so on. All normal reasons. But Poppy is someone I found while lurking the horror / true crime / internet mysteries side of the internet, through this video eight years ago. Around that time, she was doing this very ominous character being a pop star doing YouTube vids that felt closer to something like an ARG. Her music at the time, like Bubblebath and Poppy.Computer were in character, therefore they were this oddball bubblegum electropop. A watershed moment came with Am I A Girl?, which featured some more straight-forward pop, but also had two tracks which featured nu/alt metal chuggy riffs. Once Poppy dipped her toes into metal, she pushed further.

This "Poppy doing metal" gimmick was expanded on I Disagree, but while that album still had a lot of bubblegum-y tongue-in-cheek moments, it had more moments that felt serious. It started feeling like Poppy the character was starting to compete with Poppy the person, which is a shift that was more accentuated by an ugly split with a creative partner who had a big hand in creating the character. Already on Choke and EAT (NXT Soundtrack), albums that went even harder in an industrial, hardcore and metal direction, it seemed like there was very little of the gimmick that Poppy started out as, and even now it's a big load of flashbacks even remembering that Poppy hasn't always been the "authentic performer" she is now. Right now, as Negative Spaces is the album to talk about, it feels like Poppy the character is worlds apart. For good reason. Honestly I even considered whether it's even still worth filling this much space with things that feel so far away. Let's all agree that there's no need to do that in the future.

Now that more time has passed since Am I A Girl? and I Disagree, while I still enjoy them, I don't think the tongue-in-cheek metal aged as well as the cuts from the "serious" Poppy that have stayed with me since first hearing them. But I also admit that I started losing interest in Poppy as she was shifting away from metal, whether the alt rock of Flux and Stagger, and the middling industrial tinged pop of Zig. All with great moments, but ones that made it pretty hard to get excited about new Poppy albums. But then Poppy started appearing on absolutely massive tracks by Knocked Loose and Bad Omens that sowed the seeds for what we have here with Negative Spaces.

The short version is that this is the most straight-forwardly metal of all the Poppy full length releases, more well developed than EAT (NXT Soundtrack) and less gimmicky than I Disagree. The long version is that it somehow feels very fitting to have this drop so close to that new Linkin Park record, because they scratch pretty similar itches, but with alternative metal that's on display here going into a bunch of different directions. A lot of it is a polished version of sounds that Poppy has delved into in the past, from nu metal, metalcore, and industrial, to pop and alt rock. With a 42 minute runtime, there are some tracks that might not feel as vital as the highlights (one of which is ironically titled "Vital"), but there's plenty of variety within a pretty lean package.

Because of the variety of sounds that lie around the alt metal sound (though there quite a few song that don't feel metal at all), it does feel like each track has its own personality. Add to that there's a really strong penchant for soaring choruses that made songs like in the melodic metalcore anthem "The Cost Of Giving Up", the synthpoppy "Crystalized", the aforementioned alt rocky "Vital", and the pop punky title track. There's a small nod to the more absurdist original character with a bright "Poppy" namedrop in "New Way Out" (right before some Rammstein meets Bring Me The Horizon riffs start), a slight tongue-in-cheek dance-pop leaning to "Push Go", and a very conceptual interlude in "Tomorrow" having some nuances of having a character in it, though not the same one from years ago. But other than that you're more likely to find, on one side, catchy pop influences or, on the other side, screamo-like shrieks.

I don't want to hurry with a conclusion before letting Negative Spaces pass the test of time with at least a couple of months, but right now it does feel like this is the most well-developed, well-composed, engaging, and break-neck of all her releases. So I'm pretty sure it will pass the test of time.