Ethel Cain makes an early bid for feel-bad album of the year with Perverts
Cain is daring her fanbase to stick by her through Perverts, an album that feels like going to hell.
Image: Daughters Of Cain/AWAL
Despite the fact one of the tracks on her latest recording project, Perverts, is literally called “Onanist,” Ethel Cain is not in the business of pleasure. “If you love me, keep it to yourself,” she sings repeatedly on “Vacillator,” a nearly eight-minute song. It’s one of the only discernible lyrics in the entire project, a 90-minute onslaught of sound and fury that sounds vaguely like the sort of ambient noise one might hear in the lobby of hell. The EP (the marketing materials refer to Perverts as a “body of work,” “project,” or “EP” despite its nine tracks) is certainly not the follow-up one might expect from an artist whose star has been on the rise since the explosive release of her Southern Gothic-infused full-length debut Preacher’s Daughter in 2022—one that carried her all the way to Barack Obama’s favorite songs list that year. At least, you may not expect it if you haven’t been paying attention.
Cain (a pseudonym for artist Hayden Anhedönia) wasn’t too pleased when that whole Obama thing happened. In 2022, she responded to the former president’s lauding of “American Teenager” (her poppiest track to date, and—if her progression in this record is anything to go by—likely ever) with some superlatives of her own: “Did not have a former president including my anti-war, anti-patriotism fake pop song on his end of year list on my 2022 bingo,” she wrote. In the proceeding years, the nebulous threat of being added to an FBI watchlist didn’t dissuade her from using her voice in a way few others in her position have been willing to do. She’s dubbed President Joe Biden a “bitch,” called for the return of political assassinations in response to weapons deals with Israel, posted in support of alleged United Healthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione, and encouraged her followers to “maybe buy a gun” in the wake of Donald Trump’s election in 2024. Then, In October, she turned a metaphorical firearm on that same fanbase in an incisive rant about the culture’s current “irony epidemic.” “i [sic] feel like no matter what i make or what i do, it will always get turned into a fucking joke. It’s genuinely so embarrassing,” she wrote in a since-deleted Tumblr post. “it literally makes me never want to share anything again, i miss when i had like 20 fans who actually had something interesting to say in response to what i was making.”