Metal/pop singer Poppy has released a surprise EP, EAT  (NXT Soundtrack) via WWE and Sumerian Records. The singer appeared on WWE’s program NXT on June 8, 2021 to announce the EP.

“NXT is all about individuality and building characters and Poppy has built her own brand in a similar fashion to become the world-renowned artist she is today,” said WWE Executive Vice President Paul Levesque in a press release.

Poppy released some of the other songs from EAT  (NXT Soundtrack) earlier this year, including “Eat” at the 2021 Grammy Awards and “Fear of Dying” last month. The singer’s appearance on WWE June 8 was not a one-time occurrence– in fact, she’s been performing at the WWE regularly over the last year, even debuting “Say Cheese” on NXT.

Poppy has kept relatively busy during the COVID-19 shutdown. In addition to her WWE appearances, she played a livestream called “The Last Disagreement” in April 2021. Mxdwn author Lexi Houghton reviewed the performance, writing “Poppy has a very interesting stage presence and her music is a pretty big mix of different things. Her style is dark and cute, while her music takes on the tones of avante garde, pop and nu-metal. Nu-metal is a subgenre of alternative metal that combines elements of heavy metal and other hints of things like alternative rock, industrial and grunge. Her art-pop aesthetic makes her so fun and lively to watch when she’s performing… This show was very lively, fun and heavy. The songs were a mix of some sweet and powerful vocals, as well as heavy metal and styles. While those two things don’t typically go together, Poppy’s style blended these two elements together with ease.”

The EAT (NXT Soundtrack) EP is her newest project since her third studio album, I Disagree. Mxdwn author Cervante Pope reviewed I Disagree, writing “For the sake of creativity and possibly driving home the concept of the former self versus the future self, Poppy is doing something outside of the norm, sure. But what results in an album touted for being “post-genre,” yet having no considerable direction at all. There are parts of it that resonate individually, like the whole idea of transformation and some of the riffs themselves, but something about it carries an air of inauthenticity. It’s not really an album for pop music lovers and it certainly isn’t an album for metalheads, so it ends up landing somewhere in the middle. That limbo phase likely coincides with how Poppy might be feeling as a person, but it seems as though it is just a part of another persona.”

EAT (NXT Soundtrack) track list:

1. EAT
2. Say Cheese
3. CUE
4. Breeders
5. Dark Dark World

Photo Credit: Ekaterina Gorbacheva