Daine – ‘In Endless Awe & Agony’ review: a modern emo gothic painted in sugary pop pastels

Confessing the neuroses of stardom, Daine cashes in on today’s most lucrative pop culture currency: bearing all. The 23-year-old Filipino-Australian artist’s debut album ‘In Endless Awe & Agony’ has a clear thesis statement: “I’m not really a person”, they wail on jangly screamo cut ‘P.O.P’, “I’m a product of profit”. Wielding irony like current contemporary heavyweights (pop stars breaking the fourth wall, namely Tinashe, Underscores and Charli XCX), Australia’s “next proper breakout star” vocalises affected indifference, taking wry aim at a parasocial, voyeuristic audience over preppy indie-rock-pop amalgamates.

• READ MORE: On The Cover: Daine is stepping into self-aware popstardom: “It’s embarrassing in a delicious way”

Following a six-year stint “flopping” across a string of EPs spanning digitally ethereal trap-pop (à la Ericdoa, a once-collaborator) and celestial hyperpop, ‘In Endless Awe & Agony’ reintroduces a grounded Daine sans-autotune, fresh out the simulation, as a raw and unreserved prodigy of emo pop. Narratively, Daine portrays the debut as a Jungian individuation arc, a merging with the shadow self in search of healing. Bubblegummy career highlight ‘PQC’ sees Daine sardonically berate themself in sprightly anticipation of failure and scrutiny, but importantly self-acceptance: “You’re plastic! / You’re tragic! / Overly romantic! […] I’m wrapped in the passion / Hopelessly attaching to this weapon I’m casting!”

In an era where audiences seek overly earnest authenticity even if it demands intrusive insight, Daine obliges accordingly. “They all want me dead / But I still care about them”, they confide elsewhere on ‘PQC’; later, they sing “I see their blue eyes at the front of the battle scene” on thumping slow-dance cut ‘Supervillain’; and on ‘P.O.P’, “The crowd just wants to see you drop”. Driven by grief, financial struggles, a major label axe and a severe mental health crisis, this confessional debut marks Daine’s ecstatic martyrdom under pressure: “To yearn, to suffer, be a freak, lose your mind and do it publicly… what a thrill,” they told NME.

Cynical yet motivationally poptimistic, the result is a surreal sugar high from being chewed up and spat out by the vampiric industry at large. Take ‘Love Love (Love Love)’, a solid and wistful indie-pop feat; the jangle-pop wide-eyed hope of ‘Wishing Well’; or ‘White Collar’, huge and anthemic with its chic drawl, a statement of it-kid status, albeit one ready to admit they care too much: “I don’t think I wanna play the game of who cares less”.

WATCH

Drawing obvious comparisons to MGMT, Sleigh Bells or something found in Skins-era television, ‘In Endless Awe & Agony’ is trendy, gritty and hyperactive, a freeform pastiche of genres (spanning indietronica to Midwest emo to noise pop to folk) that never feels out-of-date. Top-lining the fizzy throwback earworminess are sinewy depictions of bruised knees on magazines, cannibalism, guns, money, celebrity, infatuation, naivety and death – a modern gothic painted in sugary pop pastels and grungey celebrity. Darkly confrontational yet childlike in its exuberance, Daine’s debut is a refreshing, compelling and sickly-sweet rebrand.