Two-time GRAMMY nominee and avant-garde metal icon Poppy has kicked off 2025 with “Unravel” — a song that feels like the artist peeling back her own layers one scream, one melodic fragment at a time. Released via Sumerian Records, the track marks her first solo original single of the year, following the explosive three-way collaboration “End of You” with Amy Lee and Courtney LaPlante.

Produced by Jordan Fish (Bring Me The Horizon), “Unravel” builds tension from its opening moments — a five-beat bar in the first two seconds that immediately knocks the rhythm off-center, setting up a track that thrives on controlled unpredictability. What follows is a flurry of breakbeats, beautifully complex melodies, and an atmosphere that’s as introspective as it is volatile. One fan summed it up best: “Plenty to chew on in that — breakbeats, beautiful (but complicated) melody and singing… Isn’t it about time this lady won something?”

Musically, “Unravel” is a showcase of contrasts: haunting verses that border on vulnerable confession suddenly detonate into walls of cathartic distortion. The production feels both organic and industrial, while Poppy’s voice — equal parts angelic and infernal — commands total attention. “Her voice and her screams are perfect together,” one listener wrote. “We need more of this.”

The accompanying visualizer, directed by longtime collaborator Sam Cannon, finds Poppy facing a tornado — a poetic image for an artist who’s made chaos and control her aesthetic trademark. The clip’s cinematic minimalism mirrors the sound: beautiful, eerie, and impossible to ignore.

For many fans, “Unravel” signals a new chapter. “Poppy was actually made for rock ballads oh my god,” one fan gushed, while another celebrated her evolution, saying, “It really feels like Poppy has found herself now. Her voice is incredibly versatile! This, like all of the Negative Spaces visualizers, is stunning.”

Poppy’s recent work — including her collaboration with Knocked Loose (“Suffocate”), which earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Metal Performance — cements her as a singular force in modern heavy music. It’s not just that she’s bending genres anymore; she’s rewriting what pop-metal hybridization can sound like.

As one longtime follower put it: “I’ve been following her since she was just making videos on YouTube, and now she’s a worldwide metal sensation. The breakdown was brutal. Yesterday it was Bad Omens, today it was Poppy. Modern metal is on the rise.”

After wrapping her They’re All Around Us Tour, Poppy is heading back on the road this fall, joining Linkin Park for a string of South American dates before closing out her own headline show in São Paulo.

Author: Andrew Braithwaite

Andrew is the founder and chief editor of Music Talkers. He's also a keen music enthusiast and plays the guitar.