Album Review: Negative Spaces by Poppy

Jordan Fish, previously of Bring Me The Horizon, took up production duties for Poppy's latest project, and he's not strayed far from what he knows. Still, Negative Spaces avoids sounding like an all-out Bring Me tribute thanks, largely, to Poppy's already-proven versatility. There are nods to other influences, from Slipknot to Hole, while glimpses of her poppier instincts on tracks like "vital" and "nothing" - even between the heavier moments on "they're all around us" - bring a touch of Meet Me @ The Alter into the mix.

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It's worth pondering, for a moment, the remarkable collapse in metal and pop music's boundaries. Back in the 1980s, when subcultural distinctions were probably at their peak, Iron Maiden were lambasted by their fans for the then-unthinkable crime of using synths on an album. Imagine pulling those fans to today and showing them the genre-smashing Bring Me The Horizon, the inexplicably massive Babymetal or the equally successful Poppy; a former YouTube performance artist who fuses ultra-modern technical metal with glistening hyper-pop, or whatever post-Brat term we're now using for this current pop sound.

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The chameleonic Poppy has never had a natural form - but her brief previous forays into industrial rock and metal have teased a style that begs to be explored further. Light years apart from 2017's synth-pop record 'Poppy.Computer' but closer to 2020's gnarly 'I Disagree', 'Negative Spaces' sees her embrace the heaviness with open arms. With the helping hand of House Of Protection's Stephen Harrison and former Bring Me The Horizon member turned super-producer Jordan Fish, 'Negative Spaces' ebbs and flows between radio rock, ruthless metal and a sprinkling of bubblegum pop.

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