Bruised Sky Lyrics – POPPY | from “Empty Hands”

POPPY stares down the void with Bruised Sky, the second single off her seventh album Empty Hands, out January 23, 2026, via Sumerian Records, and it creeps in like dusk settling heavy, that bruised horizon where hope frays but the fight flickers on.

She first let it loose live at The Palladium in Worcester back on September 2, raw and unfiltered, her voice slicing through the crowd’s hush like it was born from the stage lights themselves. Bruised Sky digs into that tangled mess of coping with what’s poisoned you, treating love or loss like a sickness you can’t shake, all while the moon watches and prophecies unravel. It’s Poppy at her most alchemical: industrial edges grinding against ethereal pop swells, produced by Jordan Fish with those brooding synths and a beat that pulses like a held breath. Co-written in the thick of 2025 sessions, it wrestles numbness against fear, the cradle breaking into red-to-white pools that scream transformation. No big guests here, just her channeling that post-Eat Nix glow-up, where vulnerability isn’t weakness but the spark that burns clean.

Empty Hands isn’t some light lift; it’s a 12-track excavation of surrender and rebirth, kicking off with a TBA opener before this one hits as track two, rolling through cuts that probe the empty after the storm. Think themes of obscured feelings forcing hard lessons, with the whole arc feeling like bathing in light after the dark—less metal fury than her I Disagree days, more a hypnotic blend of alt-pop and electronica that mirrors her shift toward inner worlds. The tracklist’s still unfolding, but expect Fish’s touch keeping it sonically vast yet intimate, around 40 minutes of no-filler immersion.

Poppy’s owning this phase like never before, twice-Grammy-nominated and fresh off a tour that packed venues with die-hards reciting her manifestos. From YouTube’s metallic bubblegum roots to this visionary edge, Empty Hands marks her deepest pivot yet, trading spectacle for the kind of truth that hits when the noise dies down. It’s her saying the bruise is where the sky cracks open.

X went wild after the Worcester clip surfaced, folks looping those “don’t forsake me” cries over glitch edits, tags like #BruisedSky stacking theories on how it ties her chaos to quiet power. If Unravel was the unraveling, this is the mend that scars beautifully.