Ethel Cain has never been your run-of-the-mill superstar, despite more than 2 million monthly listeners, endorsements from Florence and the Machine, and slots at Coachella and Bonnaroo. Her first full-length album, Preacher’s Daughter from 2022, touched on her religious upbringing and aesthetic elements of dark Southern Gospel. This album brought fans from all over who resonated with Cain’s background, her unique storytelling, and the ambient, sustained basslines she languidly sang over during her live shows. However, her newest album, Perverts, which just dropped on January 8, is a completely different animal.
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Perverts is a reflection of the state of things from Ethel Cain’s point of view. A handful of the tracks break 10 minutes of slow, ambient droning, such as the 13-minute and 35-second “Housofpsychoticwomn.” This track fades into a fuzzy, sustained note with the distorted phrase “I love you” muttered over and over like a hymn.
Cain stated last year that she wanted to make music her way, and told Kiernan Shipka for Interview magazine that she was excited to “push it farther into the direction that [she has] always wanted to go.” This included “10- to 20-minute songs just drenched in reverb, so slow, and super repetitive.” Perverts is the culmination of Cain’s willingness to express herself in ways that others may find disturbing or difficult.
Ethel Cain May Isolate Some Fans With Perverts, But That Might Be On Purpose
Right out of the gate, the title track opens on a distorted recording of what sounds like a congregation singing “Nearer My God to Thee.” It continues with more distorted mutterings, glitchy sounds, and general slow noise, ending with the phrase, “It’s happening to everybody.” Since its release, many critics have found Perverts to be a difficult listen, perhaps even unapproachable. This record might lose Ethel Cain some listeners, but I don’t think that will bother her. There are barriers surrounding Perverts, but I firmly believe that’s intentional.
Ethel Cain has always been an artist that deserves close listening. She doesn’t make records that you put on in the background of a party (unless you’re having a séance). Cain makes music for herself, first and foremost, and Perverts feels like an expression of both her artistry and her psyche. Throughout my first listening of the new album, there were multiple moments where I felt as if I was hearing something I wasn’t supposed to, bearing witness to secrets I wasn’t supposed to know. Long, sustained reverb ends with Cain merely speaking in distorted vocals, reciting poetry or what could even pass for scripture.
Perverts Possesses the Liminal Sound of a Southern Gothic Landscape
“Pulldrone” features a recitation that makes me feel as if I’m being indoctrinated into a cult and I couldn’t be more intrigued. “Six, delineation / I want to know what God knows / and I will be with Him,” says Cain, then “Seven, perversion / It is no good bearing false witness, the sinner’s errand / I am what I am, but we are not the same.” This track is 15 minutes long; just when you think it’s coming to an end, you realize you’re only halfway through. That’s the ultimate power of Perverts—it distorts time, elongating minutes into hours and days and weeks where you’re hearing what sounds like the buzz of a circular saw, the drone of bees, the scrape of an out-of-tune violin.
“This agony, such is the consequence of audience,” says Ethel Cain on “Pulldrone.” The consequence of audience made her feel like “a dancing monkey in a circus,” she told The Guardian. This new album puts Ethel Cain in the driver’s seat of her own success, and success sounds like distorted Southern Gothic nightmares, sustained droning scripture on a too-hot Sunday afternoon, the liminal sound of wheat fields rustling in the wind, and a call to prayer that you can feel in your gut.
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