Ethel Cain
Perverts


3.5
great

Review

by YoYoMancuso STAFF
January 7th, 2025 | 247 replies


Release Date: 01/08/2025 | Tracklist

Review Summary: If you love me, keep it to yourself.

“We are in an irony epidemic…I 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.”

While the above quote from Hayden Anhedönia is far from the only shadow that looms over the writhing and uncompromising Perverts, it is perhaps the most satisfying explanation we have for its confrontational nature, and why Ethel Cain deemed it so important for her ever-growing irony-plagued audience to hear. The runaway success of Preacher’s Daughter transformed Anhedönia into a star overnight, and subsequently brought her onto an inevitable collision course with stan culture, the evaporation of her privacy, and a legion of supposedly loyal listeners distorting her art and refusing to take it seriously, the latter of which drew her ire more than any other negative consequence of fame. Revelling in its own ugliness, frigidity, and spiritual confusion, Perverts reads like a book of Hosea for the Internet age, spouting grave and fiery prophecies about humanity’s tendency to twist, use, neglect, destroy, and ultimately succumb.

The gutting theme of disordered and dangerous love dominates the project’s lyrical and ideological underpinnings. While the cold, brutalist title track and the bullet-time explosion of “Onanist” make overt reference to the act of masturbation, it can be read more broadly through the lens of the album as a condemnation of instant self-gratification, an insufficient substitute for true peace and/or spiritual enlightenment. “Onanist”’s repeated outro mantra of “it feels good” both soothes and intimidates for this exact reason, as the supposed sensory cure for Cain’s characters ultimately becomes the wound that does them in. Sometimes, this futile race toward pleasure is run through substances (on the jaw-dropping closing track “Amber Waves”), but it can also be framed as fleeing from pain, with these desperate attempts to escape haunting the chilling “Etienne” and philosophical centerpiece “Pulldrone”, each prison break amounting to nothing more than an Ouroboros eating its own tail. To pervert and degrade is to allow your own nature to eat you alive, and to surrender one’s body to this misguided sense of beauty and love is to break it beyond repair. It’s how the incessant repetition of the simple phrase “I love you” turns “Housofpsychoticwomn” into genuine nightmare fuel, and how “Punish”’s refrain of “I am punished by love” becomes the album’s centralizing concept. Both in her personal life post-Preacher’s Daughter and in society writ large, Cain bears witness to the devastating consequences of audience, idolatry, deficient simulacra, and the annihilation of the spirit.

All of these elements coalesce most beautifully on the stunning “Vacillator”, which can easily be named as one of the highlights of Cain’s musical career thus far. As the album’s sole track that incorporates percussion, it immediately stands out musically, only to steadily become even more intoxicating as increasing layers of melody, reverb, and downright ethereal vocal harmonizing interlock to create an unforgettable slowcore stew. As the track climaxes, Cain addresses any number of audiences (the narrator’s significant other/her own audience/a higher power/those who have perverted her creative expression) with the admonishment to keep their love for her to themselves, and leave her spirit undisturbed. To juxtapose this request against the album’s warmest and most inviting instrumental is undeniably clever and further cements it as the album’s crown jewel and most memorable composition.

As far as the rest of the tracklist goes, only “Punish” and “Amber Waves” can join “Vacillator” on the list of “traditional” Ethel Cain tracks, which is exactly how she wants it. While primarily instrumental outings like “Etienne” and “Thatorchia” recall the devastating one-two punch of “August Underground” and “Televangelism”, the remaining meat of the record exists in a murky, hostile space of dark ambient and drone. While I believe most established fans will readily adore all the songs previously mentioned in this paragraph, the remaining tracks, namely “Perverts”, “housofpsychoticwomn”, and “Pulldrone”, will heavily polarize and not work for many who enter. Admittedly, each of these tracks did not work for me at different times, primarily because of their lack of Cain’s vocal arrangements, which I have always considered her greatest strength as a performer. Additionally, Perverts’ 90-minute runtime and average song length of ten minutes could be intended to alienate, and undoubtedly harmed the record’s replay value for me as I continued to dig deeper into it. Perhaps this is the point, or perhaps I’ve missed it entirely. Either way, my respect for these compositions never dwindled because of their bravery and clarity of artistic vision, and I admire the fact that Hayden Anhedönia could not give less of a fuck what I think of her music in the first place. I cannot in good conscience say that I loved every second of Perverts, but maybe I wasn’t supposed to. After all, love can be quite a dangerous thing.



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Comments:Add a Comment 
YoYoMancuso
Staff Reviewer
January 7th 2025


19476 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

Out tomorrow. Yes the album artwork is outdated, I added the new art and am waiting for it to be replaced.



Also in an effort to write this whole review without a shred of irony, I refrained from calling her Gregorian Chants The Rapper, which was extremely difficult for me

mkmusic1995
Contributing Reviewer
January 7th 2025


2083 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Very nice review as always, Yoyo! I think what worries me prior to going in to hearing this is whether or not it's going to be too self-indulgent, too difficult of a listen. With Preacher's Daughter there was this stellar balance between melody and moodiness while also adding in those droney bits, those more experimental sections that really rounded off the experience. Punish was a solid track but seeing 4 tracks at more than ten minutes and an hour and a half runtime, seems like it's trying to detract placid fans in a way. I'm very excited to hear this and your review definitely gives me hope of finding a lot to enjoy out of this.

Odal
Staff Reviewer
January 7th 2025


2565 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

I am really excited to hear this one.



I'm sure it's gonna be a weird and challenging listen.

lucazade22
January 7th 2025


906 Comments


Is there anything on here along the same lines as American Teenager? Love x1000 that track, but honestly found the rest of that album just ok

JayEnder
January 7th 2025


21417 Comments


Kicking off 2025 right, lfg!

Excited for this but yeah think it's gonna be a lottt to chew on

YoYoMancuso
Staff Reviewer
January 7th 2025


19476 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

@lucazade22 yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh i got bad news for ya

Scoot
January 7th 2025


22955 Comments


american teenager is the only song i ever go back to on the last album

JesperL
Staff Reviewer
January 7th 2025


5760 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

excellent read, i am deeply excited for this



also probably worth mentioning that she doesn't consider this to be an album or a follow up to pd: it's meant to be an in-between entity of songs before the next big project

hamid95
January 7th 2025


1251 Comments


90 minute EP lol

hamid95
January 7th 2025


1251 Comments


in all seriousness, i appreciate how she doesn't tolerate the meme-ification of stan culture. preacher's daughter is a heavy listen and sometimes it's good not to diminish that it comes from a scary place.

Wildcardbitchesss
January 7th 2025


14651 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Can’t wait to hate it for the first few weeks and then have it magically click after listen number 20 and end up on my AOTY list in 12 months

YoYoMancuso
Staff Reviewer
January 7th 2025


19476 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

@Jesper frick I started out writing "project" and then wrote "album" out of habit towards the end

JesperL
Staff Reviewer
January 7th 2025


5760 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

hahaha i think it's fine to call 90 consecutive minutes of studio recordings an album even if it technically isn't considered one

Dewinged
Staff Reviewer
January 7th 2025


32368 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Stellar write up YoYo!



Can't wait to plug in headphones and lie in the dark spiraling down with this.

kevbogz
January 7th 2025


6279 Comments


"meme-ification of stan culture"

Tundra
January 8th 2025


10213 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

Major disappointment

LilLioness
January 8th 2025


3751 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Wait, this is classified as an EP?

theBoneyKing
January 8th 2025


24771 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Yeah. This is sort of a label obligation release.

LilLioness
January 8th 2025


3751 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Should I be concerned?

Dewinged
Staff Reviewer
January 8th 2025


32368 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Perverts, the label, the fans, all of them.



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