PoppyZig

Channelling icons and personal ruminations into barbed wire pop and candied industrial euphoria, the brand new album Zig from LA-based wunderkind Poppy is music to make you want to take on the world.

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A permeating creative force since a young age, pivoting from a dance background into performance art videos and, eventually, a solo career, the mononymous Poppy is a continuing post-genre triumph, with her fairy floss musical flair set murkily alongside 90s industrial grit, dark rave-ready electronics, and flourishes of heavy excess; a concoction that also saw Poppy become the first solo female to ever be nominated for Best Metal Performance at the Grammy Awards in 2021. An epic milestone? Of course, but the Poppy genius is more than sharp aesthetics and industry acclaim, and her latest opus, album #5, is proof that she wholeheartedly grasps the rare beast that sparks longevity: evolution and boundless authenticity.

Opening with the electro-pulsations of Church Outfit, Zig heralds a brand new sonic chapter in planet Poppy via woozy distortion, hypnotic beats, and plenty of inky pop alongside Poppy herself declaring: “This is the dress I want to be buried in”. And it’s this firm and fearless spirit that thrives throughout Zig, whether on the swaggering menace of Knockoff, the oscillating twilight ambience and fuzzed-out urgency of Hard, or the swooning, humid reminder to consider the people surrounding you and your world, complete with burning midi strings on What It Becomes.

Channelling icons and personal ruminations into barbed wire pop and candied industrial euphoria, the brand new album Zig from LA-based wunderkind Poppy is music to make you want to take on the world.

Elsewhere on Flicker, Poppy seamlessly injects powerful lyricism with nods to 80s ballads spliced with electronica. Traversing feelings of discomfort in romantic relationships, Flicker also showcases another Poppy superpower: heightened self-awareness, with the track resoundingly serving as a proverb for living in the moment aimed at those who struggle with finding and receiving love. And between glitchy gloss (1s + 0s), razor-sharp earworms (title track Zig), acoustic, heady beauty (Linger), and sugary, modern glaze (The Attic), Zig zigs and zags stylistically like a frenzied yet focused sprite coaxing you into a neon utopia, ultimately drawing to a close with the jaunty Motorbike and pulsating closing track Prove It. 

For fans of Poppy’s 2020 savagery I Disagree or 2021’s alt-rock pastiche Flux, Zig is certainly an entirely new era for the chameleonic artist. But never one to sit still for very long creatively, the electro-dance elements fused to Zig’s spine proves that Poppy can write a pop song or dazzle with vulnerability like nobody’s business – and still scream like a prismatic banshee should the occasion call for it. An intimate peek into Poppy’s psyche with nods to some of her own personal formative artists, including the likes of Blondie, Talking Heads and English DJ Blawan, Zig is music to incite, excite, and delight. 

STANDOUT TRACKS: Church Outfit, What It Becomes, Flicker
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