If the past year has marked daine’s ascent toward stardom, consider “SALT” her coronation.
In collaboration with Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oli Sykes, the single finds post-hardcore refracted through the lens of electronic and pop flair, a post-genre merger produced by Lonelyspeck that’s a keen fit for daine’s stirring sensibilities. Behind the deceptively lulling melodies, daine sounds at once anguished and self-assured, establishing a commanding voice that begs to “twist the knife in my gut.” Her emo-inflected musings are at their most painful and potent, like morose poetry straight from a journal.
Sykes gives “Salt” an additional dose of affliction, contemplating “the bitter taste of kerosene” via a lucid guest verse before backing up daine with his signature screams on the song’s avalanche of a hook. It’s here that the union between daine and Sykes makes perfect sense as two innovators — alternative music’s present and future — brilliantly collide.
Stream “SALT” below.