Alex Cameron, “Oxy Music.”

A title like Oxy Music evokes scenes of decadence and hedonism. Alex Cameron knows that. Most likely, that’s one reason it’s the title of his latest album. The cover art emphasizes this idea: The crisp white letters and the washed-out, soft-focus portrait of the Australian musician practically beg you to tack an “R” onto the front of Oxy.

But like those famously decadent art-rockers, Cameron also knows the limits and pitfalls of hedonism. For all the pleasures of Cameron’s sly croon, witty lyrics, sleek production and immaculate pop-tunes, Oxy Music’s take on substance abuse—paired with some smart, sensitive digs at online culture—is almost as harrowing and powerful as Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night.

Oxy Music opens with “Best Life,” a mid-tempo number about putting your best foot forward on social media and still not reaching the next step. The guy in the song does all the stuff you’re supposed to do—leaves comments, boasts about achievements (“There’s nothing like the feeling/ Of when you do a thing”), trades “a follow for a follow”—but he still can’t get noticed by the girl he likes. People tell him not to worry, but he shrugs them off, “’Cause you never had a presence online.” Not that he gets caught worrying too much: “Yeah, when they ask you how you’re doing… You say, ‘I’m out here/ ‘Living my best life.’”

The music of “Best Life” reflects this fake-it-’til-you-make-it mentality. The melody is so sunny and the production so glossy that they’re like the aural equivalent of J.J. Abrams’s “Star Trek” lens flare. All this prettiness might tempt the listener to ignore the anxiety and loneliness at the song’s core.

Cameron follows up this all-too-relatable vignette with the even more wince-inducing “Sara Jo,” about a woman who’s ready to kill someone over the b.s. that her family absorbs online. “Who told my brother that his kids are gonna die from this vaccine?” she asks on the chorus. “Who told my mother that she’s never gonna find no love, nobody?/ Who told my father that he doesn’t have to pay for counseling?”

Next comes the swaggering “Prescription Refill,” which puts a new spin on the phrase “love is the drug.” A young suitor promises to fix his girl’s “addiction,” telling her, “You fill my prescription, baby.” The mood is so joyous and playful—the boy charmingly calls himself “a joke told just for you”—that it masks the ominousness of that central metaphor.

But then comes “Hold the Line,” which ditches love and goes all in on the drugs. That’s literally the case for the addict in this song: “I’m wearing my blossom robe,” Cameron sings, “but I can’t even get it up.” He knows his mom and dad still love him, though, because junkies’ parents “Don’t see/ The bags around our eyes and all the bruises on our thighs.” This time, a nimble disco beat and an appealing tune can’t obscure the grimness of the subject matter.

Drug addiction’s hard enough, but the protagonist of “Breakdown” has to deal with mental illness on top of it. “If I have a breakdown,” he asks his girlfriend, “will you break up with me?” The song’s dreamy melody and undulating rhythm offer some hope that the couple can hold on somehow.

For the couple in “K Hole,” the odds don’t look as good. Over a steady R&B groove, the chemically dependent guy does his best to comfort his partner: “I promise when I fall, I’ll be graceful.” But in the end, she’ll be better off cutting her losses—as he says, “There’s only room for one in a K hole.”

The “Dead Eyes” of the next song could belong to that guy a little farther along on his downward spiral. As the beat shuffles on, Cameron sings mournfully of a “skinny white boy” seeking any kind of high he can find. The bouncy, goofy “Cancel Culture” lightens the mood a bit, poking fun at blundering white folks who imitate or appropriate Black culture.

The album closes with the title track, which brings the mood right back down despite its springy new wave beat. Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson helps Cameron tell this tale of a man taking anything he can—“aftermarket fentanyl,” codeine, etc.—and doing anything for it. The song ends with a chanted intimation of suicide: “You only need one bullet in the gun.”

Does the music’s buoyancy suggest he’ll pull out of this? Put the odds at 1:1, but that might be too hopeful.

Follow reporter Ben Schultz at Instagram.com/benjamin.schultz1.