Preacher’s Daughter or Pervert’s Son?
In a radio session where she played her whole 90 minute new album, Ethel Cain instructs listeners to ‘lie in a dark room and think what you want about it’. I would have to agree that this is probably the best way to experience the newest project Perverts (2025). It’s the kind of music that you just have to let wash over you while you allow your mind to wander through the slow instrumentals and mournful vocals. Reminiscent of a bleak January day, it feels drawn out, cold and grey but in a way that somehow manages to be comforting and unsettling at the same time. Long periods of distorted noise and ambient instrumentals melt into soft melodies with simple, repetitive lyrics that have the effect of seeing shapes through a thick fog.
Back in 2022, Cain’s debut studio album Preacher’s Daughter garnered critical acclaim and widespread internet fame with the single ‘American Teenager’ becoming popular on TikTok and even making it onto Obama’s favourite music list of 2022. Where Preacher’s Daughter was a concept album with a strong narrative, Perverts is not a continuation, though Cain has maintained the same uniquely Midwestern horror that makes her music so dark. Where Preacher’s Daughter told a tale of family trauma, sexual assault, murder and cannibalism, drawing on inspiration from her own relationship with identity and religion, her latest record seems to lean more into an exploration of religious and philosophical ideas.
Cain’s opening track Perverts is a 12-minute track of distorted vocals reciting the hymn ‘Nearer, My God, To Thee’. This is followed by periodic, electronic drones before melting into ‘Punish’. First released as a single back in November, Cain returns to her darker storytelling with the sound of a creaking swing and simple piano chords overlayed with distorted electric guitar, which will become a recurring presence throughout the album. ‘Houseofpsychoticwomn’ has a sort of pulsating white noise with hushed voices that make it hard to distinguish what’s being said, other than the repeated phrases of ‘I do’ and ‘I love you’. It feels like you’ve jumped into a washing machine whilst trying to eavesdrop on a conversation, but someone turned it on and now you’re stuck in an hour-long cycle of soapy water. This transitions into the slow drum beat and soothing vocals of ‘Vacillator’, with a melodic repetition of ‘If you love me, keep it to yourself’. ‘Onanist’ continues with distorted electric guitars and vocals that build to become a static climax and ‘Etienne’ is a much more peaceful instrumental of piano and acoustic guitar. ‘Thatorcia’ is fully instrumental with Cain’s gentle humming that makes me picture myself walking through an echoey church, which leads into the final track, ‘Amber Waves’ – one of my favourites – that flows, soothing and supine.
In ‘Pulldrone’ Cain speaks over a droning siren-esque noise listing her ‘pillars of Simulacra’, a concept based on Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (1981) a cornerstone of modern philosophy which proposed that our sense of the real has been superseded by the ‘hyperreal’ – that is, an understanding of the material world based not on first-hand experience, but memories of replications of material reality. Baudrillard explained that, due to the modern nature of media and marketing, the line between reality and re-presented reality has become increasingly blurred. Whilst in the context of the album these pillars likely refer to a sort of spiritual ascendance, this could also be seen as a continuation of her response to Preacher’s Daughter’s reception. After publicly rejecting the fame she received for her first studio album, Cain criticised the internet for nurturing an ‘irony epidemic’ that tends to treat art with flippancy, stating ‘Don’t let the joke about it overtake the source material’. This album seems to resist the ‘irony epidemic’ Cain criticises, and the idea that meme-ified iterations of her artistic output could reduce, or replace, the impact of her work likely echoes Baudrillard’s theory.
Interestingly, Cain seems to mostly communicate with fans through her Tumblr account (yes, I did make a Tumblr account for this and it did crash my laptop). Considered by many as a dead form of social media and mostly associated with dramatic teenage girls of the late 2000s and early 2010s, it may seem like an odd place for an artist to share their work. However, following this sentiment that we dismiss too much as ‘cringe’, embracing this form of media that stereotypically has this ‘cringe’ reputation may be her way of combating this new lack of sincerity in social media.Whilst fans still seem to appreciate the new album, it hasn’t captured the larger audience that Preacher’s Daughter did and that was probably intentional, given Cain’s disdain for the attention she previously received. This seems to be a common theme amongst artists who quickly amassed internet fame on a platform that reduces attention span and promotes sound bites over full songs, with Chappell Roan famously shunning the limelight earlier this year. Creating 10 minute slowcore songs does seem like a logical way to reduce your fanbase to those who simply appreciate your music. For this reason, despite Cain’s popularity with the past US President, I doubt Perverts will make it to the White House, though it may be more fitting, considering the current US government. Even though I initially liked the album, it’s grown on me the more I’ve listened to it and I highly recommend listening the whole way through once, though I do understand that it’s not to some people’s tastes (housemates have told me to turn off my scary music before).
Written by Cassia Bennett