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Poppy – Negative Spaces Review
Image Credit: Sumerian Records
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Today’s review is one that I didn’t think about doing originally, but on one of my reviews, there was a comment presuming that I would review two upcoming releases (well, at the time they were upcoming by a couple of weeks). The first one was, obviously, the new Linkin Park release, but the second one was by an artist who bends more genres into her music than Superman has bent steel pipes. However, that’s what makes her so exciting, and this album is no exception to that rule.
To find out what shenanigans lie ahead, read on!
Poppy – Negative Spaces
Release Date – November 15, 2024
Genre – Whatever she wants, honestly.
Band Lineup:
Poppy: Vocals/lyrics/guitars/bass
Jordan Fish: Production/various instruments
Ralph Alexander Granter – Drums
Track Listing:
1. “Have You Had Enough?” (3:38)
2. “The Cost of Living” (3:17)
3. “They’re All Around US” (3:25)
4. “Yesterday” (0:48)
5. “Crystallized” (3:06)
6. “Vital” (3:20)
7. “Push Go” (3:33)
8. “Nothing” (3:04)
9. “The Center’s Falling Out” (2:25)
10. “Hey There” (1:29)
11. “Negative Spaces” (2:55)
12. “Surviving on Defiance” (3:28)
13. “New Way Out” (3:23)
14. “Tomorrow” (0:52)
15. “Halo” (3:41)
Moriah Rose Pereira remains one of the busiest and most in demand artists in any musical genre. Better known as Poppy, she has not only released six EP’s going back to 2016, but five full length albums as well. The release of Negative Spaces marks her sixth LP, and 12th album overall in just EIGHT years. The album also sees Poppy continue to flex her musical talent, bouncing from genre to genre as if she were a frog landing on every lily pad in the pond.
During the calendar year of 2024, Poppy was featured on Bad Omen’s track “V.A.N.” and later would make an appearance on “Suffocate” from Knocked Loose. The latter track would earn a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, but we won’t know the result for a couple of months to come. Given the songs that I mentioned, it should come as no surprise that a lot of the tracks on Negative Spaces find Poppy reverting back to the metal sound that comprised 2020’s I Disagree and 2021’s Eat, an album released in correspondence with the wrestling brand known as NXT.
You may have noticed up top when I put genre and said whatever she wants, honestly and assumed that was sarcasm. And I wouldn’t blame you, for one thing that I am is extremely sarcastic. But in this case, the album manages to hit many genres and make it seamless. The definitive metal leaning is back in a big way, as the opening trio of “Have You Had Enough,” “The Cost of Living,” and “They’re All Around Us” prove this. However, all those songs pale in comparison to “The Center’s Falling Out,” which sounds like a full-fledged Knocked Loose song but released under the name of Poppy. Elsewhere, “Crystalized” sees Poppy dig into sugary sweet synthpop and delivers the sultry vocals to go along with it, “Surviving on Defiance” sounds like a cut from the Deftones, and “Halo” has so much industrial distortion that she sounds like a robot.
I will admit that, while the instruments create a wall of sound that is enjoyable, we are here for Poppy and her vocal range. On that front, the album surely does not disappoint, as she manages to balance clean, angelic vocals with some harsh core screams. On tracks like “Vital” and “Push Go,” Poppy sounds completely in touch with her pop queen sensibilities, while on cuts such as “They’re All Around Us” and “The Center’s Falling Out” she screams at the listener like she caught you cheating on her. And if you want a fair balance of the vocals she offers, never fear, because the opening two tracks combined with “Nothing” show off her ability to turn that sweet sound into a guttural scream whenever she wants to.
Jordan Fish, the former keyboardist for Bring Me The Horizon, produced this album, and to that end, some comparisons to his former group are inescapable. “Vital” sounds like it came from Amo, while “Nothing” and “New Way Out” sound like they belonged to Post Human Survival Horror. While these things are debatable as to whether you consider them good or not, the one thing he does do is he allows the instruments to remain in the mix, but they don’t engulf the vocal performances by Poppy. The album is also written by Stephan Harrison, formerly of The Chariot and Fever 333, although how much influence he had on the album is something that I cannot gauge properly.
The album is fifteen tracks on the surface, but it clocks in at a breezy 42:24 in run time, since three of the tracks, “Yesterday”, “Hey There”, and “Tomorrow” serve as interludes and respites from whatever sonic palette Poppy is throwing at you at any given time. “Hey There” is particularly interesting because it has someone who sounds like the chef from South Park speaking before Poppy takes over erstwhile it sounds like you are in a slinky lounge.
Recommended Tracks: “Have You Had Enough,” “They’re All Around Us.” “Crystallized,” “The Center’s Falling Out,” “Surviving on Defiance,” and “New Way Out.”
