Bryan Porter leads the Detroit-based “emo art rock” quartet In A Daydream. They’re self-releasing their debut album This Side Of Purgatory next month, and its lead single “The Romantic Egotist” portends good things. Porter says the song was inspired by Elliott Smith, the Beach Boys, and early 2000s emo, all of which comes through over the course of these four ambitious minutes. It strikes me as a more theatrical and explosive spin on the ultra-poppy emo sound advanced by the likes of Oso Oso.

Porter shared this statement about the album with Brooklyn Vegan:

I should start by saying I’m dedicating this record to the memory of my best friend Patrick Badgley, who passed away in 2014 at just 22 years-old. This record is about the grieving process and learning to forgive yourself for doing somewhat destructive things in an attempt to cope with a loss, and how sometimes the best way to find true happiness is accepting the fact that everything is not always going to be okay. Sometimes when you’re experiencing something as painful as the unexpected death of a loved one, you can be so desperate to feel anything else that you resort to things like substances and other self-destructive behaviors to get some relief, but the only way to truly move on is to embrace reality and try to find whatever small bits of happiness you can within the new normal of life without whoever or whatever you lost. It’s still a very emotional record for me to listen to and play live, which I can only hope is a sign that it will affect other people when they hear it too.

Hear “The Romantic Egotist” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Darkness Deepens [intro]”
02 “Dear God, (A Farce Rewritten As A Tragedy)”
03 “Narcissus Off Duty”
04 “It’s Not Your Fault (x10)”
05 “The Romantic Egotist”
06 “Everything Hurt Beautifully (So It Goes)”
07 “Fast Falls The Eventide [coda]”

This Side Of Purgatory is out 12/3.