Enduring the Wait for Poppy's New Album 'Empty Hands' With "Bruised Sky" and "Unravel" on Repeat

Poppy has been on an insane run these last few years, she’s been on an upward streak where every step feels like she’s leveling up while leaving a signature burned into the metal scene along the way. Ever since she cracked open a new dimension with Negative Spaces, the anticipation around whatever she does next has gotten so much louder, and honestly, calling it “excitement” at this point feels almost too soft of verbiage. People are so hungry to see what corners she’ll turn, what walls she’ll break, and how far she’ll push that elastic, genre-bending world she’s been building. A world that twists both sweet & heavy flavors that we just can’t get rough of. She’s the metal princess for an absolute reason.

Before I dig into “Bruised Sky,” Poppy had already eased listeners into this new part of her story with “Unravel,” a track that felt dreamlike and sweet, almost fairytale-soft on the surface, yet still carried that sting she slips in so effortlessly. It drifted in like a lullaby from another realm, her voice floating through misty melodies while subtle hints of drum and bass pulsed underneath, giving the song a heartbeat. And then the chorus hits, with a dab of explosiveness, blooming with this rush of power, but even in that moment, the song never loses its gentleness. That sweetness stays woven through every line. “Unravel” was a soft introduction and it was a signal that her next volume would live in that delicate space where vulnerability and intensity fold into each other. It set the mood, and “Bruised Sky” pushes that world even further open.

Poppy’s official next full narrative arrives in the form of Empty Hands, her seventh studio album, landing January 23 through Sumerian Records. And if her newest single “Bruised Sky” is any kind of omen, she’s absolutely still in that mode where she experiments fearlessly but still trapping us in her shadow-soaked world guided by her serene breaks. Co-written and produced with longtime collaborator (and my favorite person) Jordan Fish, the track oscillates between harsh, throaty uncleans and these hypnotically eerie, almost breathy and lingering melodic sweeps, the kind of contrast Poppy has mastered in her recipes of artful success. Instead of dropping a flashy, hyper-polished visual with the single’s release, she chose something more personal: a live cut from the They’re All Around Us Tour, letting her stage presence and skill do ALL the talking. This was such a great idea, because her live performances have been so notably escalating, it feels like she’s showing saying, “Yeah, I’m that girl, who is climbing every ladder in this industry.”

“Bruised Sky” actually had a life long before it hit streaming. Fans first heard it on September 2nd during the second leg of the tour, its title quietly printed on the physical setlist like a secret waiting to be decoded. A month later, she teased the lyrics through the @Poppytaskforce Instagram account, and by early November she was sliding mysterious “BRUISED SKY” links into her stories before officially confirming its release for November 12, 2025.

Visually, the official music video (directed by Orie McGinness, which makes perfect sense; this is totally his wheelhouse) drops Poppy and her band into a grim, fog-soaked wasteland, carefully composed of one cup of dystopia, and another cup of dreamscape, a perfect extension of the track’s tension and bite.

And as if she wasn’t already everywhere, she just finished touring with Linkin Park across South America and immediately announced a 2026 world run: the Constantly Nowhere Tour, sweeping through Australia, Europe, and the U.K. with support from Ocean Grove, Inertia, and Foxlake. Meanwhile, U.S. fans… well, we’re still waiting for our dates like kids staring out a rainy window.