Perverts
Around the time of her big break with 2022’s *Preacher’s Daughter*, Ethel Cain was dubbed a pop star, though it was often hard to tell from her songs. Aside from “American Teenager,” a Springsteen-esque anthem that laundered sneakily unpatriotic sentiments through arena-ready melodies, that album’s songs were largely dirges (gorgeous ones, at that) preoccupied by ideas of doomed love, faith, and fate. Written and produced almost entirely by Cain (the stage name and alter ego of Hayden Anhedönia), the project’s lore was nearly as compelling as the music itself, launching Anhedönia into something like stardom. Since then, Anhedönia’s spoken freely about the pitfalls of popularity; she penned a Tumblr post last year identifying an irony epidemic within online fan culture: an aversion to approaching art with sincerity rather than memes. You could be tempted to view *Perverts*, Cain’s first release since *Preacher’s Daughter*, as a provocation—an often-challenging 90-minute work that seems designed to scare off a stan or two. Songs like “Pulldrone” and “Housofpsychoticwomn” are noise experiments that stretch well past the 10-minute mark, full of eerie drone, depersonalized spoken word, and terrifying imagery regarding sex and sin. The moments of hard-earned beauty feel all the more rewarding: the fuzzy, sultry “Vacillator,” or “Etienne” and “Thatorchia,” a pair of elegiac instrumentals that sound like beams of heavenly light piercing through the darkness.
Darker and slower than ever, the singer-songwriter’s second LP blends claustrophobic ambient textures with chilly, half-obscured songs about powerlessness, guilt, and shame.
Ethel Cain is daring her fanbase to stick by her through Perverts, an album that feels like going to hell.
Ethel Cain’s ‘Perverts’ is no easy listen, but persisting through its bleak layers brings plenty of rewards – read the NME review
Immensely incomprehensible, scary and challenging, Perverts is Ethel Cain on her terms.
If you’re also a freak for dark ambient and drone music, this deeply unsettling album is for you
Cult favourite Ethel Cain embraces the darkness on chilling new ambient project Perverts...
Listening to the alt-pop artist’s latest project feels like being trapped in a serial killer’s underground network of post-industrial tunnels
Ethel Cain’s foggy, horrifying, southern gothic pantomime, Perverts is a cryptic conquest seeking to draw out your deepest fears and desires.
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From its very title, ‘Perverts’ is not an album for the faint-hearted. On her debut album ‘Preacher’s Daughter,’ Ethel Cain (stage persona of Hayden
Ambient soundscapes dominate US singer-songwriter Hayden Silas Anhedönia’s resolutely avant garde second album
With ‘Perverts,’ Ethel Cain finds peace and quiet not in literal death, but in the death of love.
The experience of Ethel Cain's 'Perverts' is gloomy, powerful, and extremely terrifying. It's practically a masterclass on how to score for a horror film.
Perverts by Ethel Cain album review by Victoria Borlando for Northern Transmissions. The artist's EP drops on January 10 via Daughters of Cain
<strong>(Daughters of Cain)</strong><br>Having struggled with the obsessive fandom drawn to her widescreen pop-Americana, Cain returns with 90 minutes of collapsing songs and confrontational power electronics