Album Review: Pain and Paradise

Aotearoa-born, LA-based musician Janine has made waves in the indie R&B music scene with her new 16-track sophomore album Pain and Paradise. A project spanning five years, touching on many of the ups and downs of the musician’s life, the album was shaped by the changes that the pandemic brought to Janine’s life, and touches on both destructive and healthy relationships, moving through self-discovery and confidence, and her father’s unexpected passing. This album contains multitudes. There are thankful love songs found in Saved Me, there are reflective anthems sweetened with hindsight with Thank You For Breaking My Heart, and perfectly placed interludes transitioning between moods and subjects.

My personal favourite is the previously released Make You Proud. It pulls the heartstrings as Janine sings about how she hopes she made her father proud, especially now that he’s not around. The simplistic lyrics are a raw insight into the complex feelings of grief and the lack of words to describe something so terrible. The vocal performance is terrific, emotional, and incredibly moving. 

Make You Proud flows perfectly into Dad’s Interlude, which particularly breaks my heart, as it features a recording of Janine’s father talking about the wildlife back in New Zealand, and as he points out himself, you can even hear the birds in the background. As a Kiwi living abroad myself, it was such a homesickness easer hearing the wildlife, and remarkably similar to how my parents talk about the wildlife in their back garden.

The interlude shifts into UP, a never heard before song about the importance of a support system of your loved ones, in both the good times and the bad. It uplifts the tone of the album back into its paradise focus, but is a natural progression from the grief of the previous two tracks.

Ultimately, Pain and Paradise is an incredible album that toes the line between heartbreaking ballads and R&B infused pop bangers. Pain must be fought through to reach Paradise, they can coexist at the same point in your life, and this album is the perfect balm to accept that balance. It has everything for people currently in love, currently at the end of a tumultuous relationship, going through the grieving process, and wanting to dream big. It has something for everyone, and a soundtrack to an incredibly tumultuous period of your life, and learning to surround yourself with loved ones through the tough and wonderful times.