January 2025 Featured Release - The Gateway Edition

Happy new year Metal Academy! We hope you have enjoyed the year that was and all of the great metal music that was blessed to our ears over 2024. Now we get to wait around and see if 2025 can live up to the heightened standards from the previous year. And to start off the Gateway featured releases for the new year, let's check out Poppy's newest record, Negative Spaces.

https://metal.academy/releases/56096

I haven't listened to Poppy before, but have seen her plastered all over RYM as she seems to be a darling of the cognoscenti over there. Well, I think it is fair to say that this is not aimed at me and so my opinion is irrelevant. To me this sounds like someone has made a mashup of Avril Lavigne, Kittie and Evanescence, thrown in a few recycled Slipknot riffs and Linkin Park backing tracks, then employed a world class marketing team and pursuaded people they are listening to something new and exciting. There is nothing for me at all in this and all I got out of it was disinterest. I hate giving out really low marks, but I asked myself if I listened to every metal album ever made, would this be in the bottom ten percent and I would have to say, yes it would, hence the score.

I want to try to expand my metal listening a bit this year and thought the clan monthly features would be a good source, but it hasn't exactly got off to a sterling start. I won't be writig a full review for Negative Spaces because it would be unfair on the strength of just one listen, but I just couldn't do it again. Sorry Saxy, I hate dumping on other people's picks, but I just don't get this at all.

0.5/5