Pastel goths, shoegazers and old indie heads alike filled the Button Factory to hear NewDad’s effortlessly cool Galwegian alt-rock in living colour.

Through the releases of EPs ‘Waves’, ‘Banshee’ and their excellent debut full-length ‘Madra’, the quartet have crafted a timeless sound – simultaneously modern and nostalgic – earning them comparisons to legends the Cure and contemporaries Beabadoobee and Just Mustard.

Mullets, moustaches and charity shop chic were all on full display, growing in numbers as dream pop starlet in the making Daire Heffernan set the tone for the evening.

Against a red backlight, the band kicked off with album opener Angel, oozing with chemistry and charisma, with lead vocalist Julie Dawson and bassist Cara Joshi locking into a guitar duel during the song’s staccato second half.

Much to the delight of the Dublin crowd, the band played a perfect balance of material old and new – oldies Slowly, Say It, Blue, Ladybird, I Don’t Recognise You and How are all met with rapturous reception. As an added bonus, the band’s recent cover of Just Like Heaven, recorded for BBC’s Live at Maida Vale series was recreated at the set’s midway point.

Elsewhere, In My Head proves to be a live favourite, the crowd singing the song’s bridge “See it’s easy for you / It’s easy for you to forget / Because you’re not in my head / You’re not in my head” in unison. Later, Dawson downed her guitar to channel her inner Shirley Manson on Sickly Sweet, an album highlight that brings ‘Garlands’-era Cocteau Twins bang up to date.

The traditional game of peek-a-boo at the show’s end sees the band resurface to play the more intimate White Ribbons, which Dawson tells us is about drummer Fiachra Parslow after a “ropey night” out “how our bodies can just heal themselves”, finally asking the crowd to bark in unison before closing with “Madra”.

Most remarkable of all is Dawson’s quietly captivating vocal performance. Despite the ethereal layers of kaleidoscopic sound the band manage to wrap around earworm melodies, at no point does the spotlight stray away from her words or voice, beautifully bittersweet as they are.

This is probably the last time we’ll see NewDad play in a venue like this on their home soil, and rightly so. For what it is, it’s a perfect snapshot of a band about to truly come into their own.