Venturing away from the emo cloud-rap that defined their previous releases, In Endless Awe & Agony takes a surprising indie-rock turn, vibrating with a sense of urgency mixed with nostalgia for simpler times.

The record arrives at a time of severe uncertainty for the future, one that has recently let young people from France to Albania and Brazil to take to the streets and revolt. Daine may be observing from the stands more than they are calling for action, but it's no wonder that their music has resonated with a despondent generation with lyrics like “Our adulthood is leaving before it began” on "(I Want You In) Dakota".

In Endless Awe & Agony is a record of almost childlike experimentation, ranging from electro-pop and indie-rock to twee and Midwest emo in a way that feels like a second skin – a melting pot of genres that fits this era’s hyper-access to musical knowledge. Reckoning with the loss of identity in a late-stage capitalist world of disconnect by design, daine takes a tone that's both detached and wistful. Their outlook may be somewhat jaded, but they still can find the humour in a desperate situation; as the title of the record suggests, darkness and light go hand-in-hand in these songs.

Across this studio debut, daine flits seamlessly between a plethora of musical inspirations and references, often within the same song. On “I Used To Kill” (featuring aldn), for example, a soft guitar melody shuts down the song's electroclash front-end. The result is an album that often sounds as though a third-wave emo band’s discography has been filtered through a glitching computer system, with songs that stretch in style from Avril Lavigne-esque ballad to the devil-may-care rave-pop attitude of someone like bassvictim. At times, the strange compositions can even feel like an echo of Grimes in her 2016 prime, or early Modern Baseball.

As opposed to fellow indie sleaze revivalists, though, daine’s mindset rarely, if ever, finds release in parties and drugs. Instead, they hand out self-aware analyses casually, from the upper-class ennui of “White Collar” to “PQC”’s “You’re plastic / You’re tragic” and the cold, cold heart of “Product of Profit (P.O.P.)”. But if In Endless Awe & Agony's portrait of decay has any conscience-driven takeaway, it's a refusal to look away from the hard stuff, or to take the easy way out. As "Supervillain" makes clear, "It doesn’t take guts to be so indifferent.”