It’s a little unusual to see a surrealist art-pop Youtube android Poppy strolling around amid the unwashed masses at Reading 2019. But now she’s on a new mission. The last time we spoke was for the shimmering and experimental robopop of ‘Am I A Girl‘. Now, she’s here to rock.

“I’ve made a new album since then, it’s even heavier than the last,” Poppy tells NME. “That was mainly pop but this one is a whole new vibration. Some are calling it metal, but I’m calling it post-genre.

“The funny thing that happened while making ‘Am I A Girl’ was that while on my way to the studio, I was listening to a lot of heavier music like Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie. We thought it would be a good idea to make a song like that. ‘X’ came about for that reason and since there I’ve been keeping everything under wraps as I make this new album. I’m very excited to release it later this year.”

The first taster of her upcoming third album came in the form of the hyperactive launch single ‘Concrete‘ – somewhere between thrashmetal and bubblegum pop, inspired by “wanting to be buried six feet under ground, covered in concrete and turned into a street”. We’ve all felt that way on the last day of Reading Festival, but for Poppy this is the bold first step on the next part of her journey.

“I would say that in a way ‘Concrete’ is representative,” she continues. “We wrote ‘Concrete’ around the time we wrote ‘X’ and ‘Scary Mask’ [from ‘Am I A Girl] and ‘Concrete’ is an adventure I hope you get to take. There are many more adventures to come on that record.”

She said her last record was an exploration of “girls, boys, fashion, robots and destroying corporations”. What’s been inspiring her on the next record?

“Well, now I have decided that it would be nice to light things on fire and destroy the rest of what was remaining previously,” she says, which is fair enough. “We rebuild at the end, but we can talk about that later.

She’s also been spotted hanging out with Marilyn Manson, and even went to his birthday bash. “His party was fun,” she reveals. “It is what you would have imagined it to be.”

Is this a sign their long-awaited collaboration has finally come to pass?

“You never know. Anything can happen in the world. Anything.”

While we wait for that with baited breath, Poppy promises “guitars and drums and bass and lots of screaming” on her current tour, which will be coming back to the UK in 2020 to spread the gospel of ‘The Church Of Poppy’ – to infinity and beyond. Their mission? “To make the world happy and cute, and to use your gifts to inspire others”.

Expect her to be keeping it weird, but a whole lot louder.

Watch our full video interview with Poppy at the top of the page where she also talks about muddy festivals, her love of metal and her long-lasting feud with a mannequin called Charlotte.