Ethel Cain Confronts The Darkness on “Perverts”
Graphic by Sofia Giarrusso
by bennett himmel
There’s not an artist who’s had a stranger, more unexpected career arc this decade than Ethel Cain. In 2021, she garnered a small fanbase of online queer people who were drawn to her charming internet persona and her brilliant songwriting that could be flirty and witty, while dark and stomach-churning at the same time. But with the release of her debut studio album Preacher’s Daughter in 2022, something amazing happened: The album was brilliant. It was studded with clever turns of phrase, guitar solos that evoked Bruce Springsteen, and clear, strong vocal performances. It makes sense, then, that with this album, Ethel Cain completely transcended her internet bubble, much to her own chagrin.
As her audience grew, more and more people formed parasocial relationships with the singer. Speaking to The Guardian, she explained, “I was like, I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to be friends with you. I don’t want to have all of my personal business and every innermost thought just out there on the internet for the world to see.” On the new Perverts, her second full-length recording (Cain has made it clear via press releases that this is not her second studio album), she burrows deeper into the darkness, creating a nightmarish, hazy, and at times inscrutable, ambient, noisy dirge about human depravity. It is both an all-encompassing and deeply challenging listen.
The project’s title track opens with a warped tape recording of Cain singing “Nearer My God To Thee,” and for a second you think you’re going to get a project like Reverend Kristen Michael Hayter’s SAVED! in all its tape-warped, religious glory. But besides this moment, these two projects have nothing to do with each other. What follows the one-minute cover is a 12-minute hissing drone as Cain repeats, “Heaven has forsaken the masturbator.” The song is bone-chilling and ranks itself as Cain’s best opener.
Perverts, as a project, operates in two modes. One is the drone and spoken word mix as described, with the other being marginally more accessible vocal led-tracks that bring to mind artists like Grouper or Julianna Barwick. One of the best of these ballads is “Vacillator,” a rare track on the project to feature any percussion. Lyrically, it’s beautiful, if a bit more cryptic than anything on Preacher’s Daughter. “If you love me, keep it to yourself,” Cain implores over softly plucked guitars. For all of Perverts’ cold atmosphere, “Vacillator” feels incredibly warm, a trait only shared with one of the instrumental tracks, the sterling “Etienne.”
There is no doubt that Perverts is an incredibly confrontational piece. With this project, it’s clear that Cain is attempting to filter out the parasocial fanbase that…ahem…swiftly flooded her Tumblr asks. The most confrontational moment on the project is easily “Pulldrone,” the project’s 15-minute sprawling centerpiece. The track opens up with a spoken word monologue about a concept called “the 12 pillars of simulacrum.” This monologue is presented like the core text of the record, where the listener should go for any explanation as to what they’ve been listening to for the last 50 minutes. The rest of the track is a loud hum that at times feels interminable. However, there is something hypnotic about it (as well as the other noise pieces on the record.) These tracks force you to think about what it is that you’re listening to, and what it could all possibly mean. While they are tracks that I suspect many listeners will not be returning to, I also believe that these tracks are the lifeblood of Perverts, and the project would not work without them.
Perverts’ strongest track arrives at the end of the record with “Amber Waves,” an 11-minute instant slowcore classic about choosing addiction over love. The song is absolutely heartwrenching, and brings in those huge guitars from Preacher’s Daughter. “I’ll be alright,” Cain intones, but you really don’t believe her. It’s transcendent.
Cain is an artist who has shown her penchant for songs that have time to sprawl out, which depending on how rotted your attention span is, is either mesmerizing or exhausting. Perverts is a deeply challenging listen for the TikTok generation, and that’s obviously part of the point. However, in my three compulsory listens of the project for this review, I discovered new things to latch onto every time.
Perverts is a very difficult project to review. It’s menacing, challenging, horny, heartbreaking, and unsettling all at once, and unlike Preacher’s Daughter, it does not show all of its secrets on first listen. But there is a part of me that adores the ambition of this record, possibly even more than I adore the narrative of Preacher’s Daughter. By being more cryptic, the project entices the listener to figure things out for themselves, and spiral along with the protagonist as the buzzing hurdy gurdy on “Pulldrone” scrubs the inside of their cranium. “I will claw my way back to the Great Dark and we will not speak of this place again,” Cain chants. Perverts makes you want to go with her.