Review Summary: I can’t feel anything.
Haunting, unsettling, and perplexing, Ethel Cain dives fully into her love of drone music on ‘Perverts’, an hour and a half long, 9 track ‘EP’ (I’m sorry girl this is an album, I work in marketing I know what you’re doing). Shifting in the opposite direction of its semi-accessible predecessor ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, the record still manages fully immerse you into the world she’s built for her character. This is exemplified in the hypnotizing repetition of “I love you” for 13 minutes in “Housofpsychoticwomn”, leading to “If you love me, then keep it to yourself” in the suceeding “Vacillator” and the contextual weight that line carries. ‘Perverts’ is an extremely cohesive listen despite its diversity and packs an emotional gutwrench behind its empty, at times hollow soundscapes. From the devastating baritone guitar drop of “Punish” that kicks off the first true “song” of the project, to the breathtaking, somber piano of “Amber Waves” there’s a lot to experience, both enjoyable like the aforementioned and grating such as “Pulldrone”, which is 15 minutes worth of a mic’d up electric toothbrush… no, I’m not making that up.
‘Perverts’ is an impressive and enthralling listen and a fantastic display of artistry, but its length does make re-listens challenging. The full 90 minute listen is rewarding and worth experiencing at least once, and I can’t help but respect Ethel Cain for the vision of this project. I keep thinking about my initial reaction to the title track which opens the record and realizing with an anxious unease and slight terror of what I was about to listen to from the first moment of dead air. In a way, that feeling is exactly the goal of what she set out to accomplish with ‘Perverts’ and I wouldn’t have it another way even if the record is at times frustratingly self-indulgent and unnecessarily long.
