Daine’s debut album, ‘In Endless Awe & Agony’, presents a rawer version of the 23-year-old Filipino-Australian artist, moving away from the prominent autotune associated with their earlier work. Across the record, Daine examines the pressures of stardom and the uneasy relationship between performer and audience.
The album’s central idea appears in ‘P.O.P’, where Daine describes themself as a product shaped by profit. The song reflects the record’s self-aware approach, using irony to address parasocial attention and the expectations placed on emerging pop stars. Its sound sits between screamo and jangly pop, reflecting the album’s wider blend of styles.
After six years of releases spanning digitally tinted trap-pop and hyperpop, Daine frames this project as a more grounded and emotionally direct chapter. The album follows a journey toward self-acceptance, with songs such as ‘PQC’ turning self-criticism into energetic pop. Its lyrics confront failure, scrutiny and the artist’s tendency to become emotionally attached to the work and its consequences.
The record also draws on grief, financial difficulties, the cancellation of a major-label deal and a serious mental health crisis. These experiences give its confessionals a sense of pressure, while Daine maintains a deliberately theatrical attitude toward suffering in public.
Despite its darker subject matter, ‘In Endless Awe & Agony’ remains strongly pop-minded. ‘Love Love (Love Love)’ offers wistful indie pop, ‘Wishing Well’ leans into bright jangle-pop optimism and ‘White Collar’ expands into an anthemic statement of ambition. Together, the songs balance cynicism with an insistence on caring, even within a competitive music industry.
The album moves through indietronica, Midwest emo, noise pop and folk, creating a hyperactive pastiche that also draws comparisons to MGMT, Sleigh Bells and the sound of television associated with the Skins era. Its imagery includes celebrity, money, violence, infatuation, naivety and death, but these subjects are presented through vivid, sugary production.
Released through Pack. Records, ‘In Endless Awe & Agony’ is scheduled for November 6, 2026. The result is a dark yet exuberant reintroduction: a modern emo gothic shaped with pop brightness, grunge textures and an unusually direct portrait of life under scrutiny.
Sources: NME.