Album Review: Ethel Cain – Perverts

An Unsettling, Relentless Exploration of Alienation and Audacity

Ethel Cain’s Perverts is a stark departure, a bold experiment in dissonance and discomfort. Where Preacher’s Daughter—her widely lauded 2022 debut—invited listeners into its dark Americana sprawl with gothic hymns and soaring melodies, Perverts slams the door shut and dares you to find your way through a labyrinth of drone, distortion, and dread. It’s a rejection of expectations, a statement piece that demands attention even as it withholds any semblance of ease.

Clocking in at an audacious 89 minutes, the nine-track “EP” (a descriptor that feels like a misnomer) strays from the conventions of songcraft. Long stretches of droning soundscapes replace hooks; whispered confessions blur into unsettling noise. If Preacher’s Daughter was a southern-gothic melodrama, Perverts is its brutalist, post-industrial cousin—cold, unyielding, and strangely beautiful.

The album opens with the title track, a distorted rendition of the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” It feels like a cruel trick—nostalgic and reverent at first—until it collapses into a cavernous void of low hums and fragmented speech. Cain’s voice emerges, detached and foreboding, with lines like, “Heaven has forsaken the masturbator,” looping into near absurdity before fading into silence.

Moments of structure are rare but potent. “Punish,” one of the album’s few pieces resembling a conventional song, pairs sparse piano with Cain’s ghostly vocals. The track unfolds slowly, as if reluctant to reveal itself, before exploding into a storm of distorted guitars. It’s haunting and visceral yet resolutely uninviting. The lyrics—delivered with unnerving calm—shift between victim and perpetrator, exploring the murky interplay of guilt and desire.

“Vacillator,” another standout, anchors its minimalist country balladry with brushed drums and a muted guitar melody. It’s the album’s closest brush with accessibility, though even here, Cain resists easy comfort. Her voice, soft and resigned, delivers lines like, “If you love me, keep it to yourself,” imbuing the track with a quiet desolation. It’s slowcore at its most harrowing, a song that drifts between longing and apathy.

But these moments of clarity are rare, interspersed with long stretches of ambient unease. “Housofpsychoticwomn” and “Pulldrone” are almost aggressively sparse, their soundscapes built on queasy synths and the hum of a hurdy-gurdy. On “Thatorchia,” layers of reverb-drenched guitar evoke a wall of sound, but it’s less a crescendo and more a suffocating presence. These tracks feel like architecture—massive, unfeeling, and awe-inspiring in their scale. Cain leaves the listener stranded, forced to grapple with the enormity of the space she’s created.

Thematically, Perverts delves deep into transgression—social, spiritual, and personal. Cain, born into a Southern Baptist family, has always woven her own narrative into her work, though here it feels more fragmented. The lyrics touch on themes of shame, isolation, and self-destruction, but often as whispers or disjointed monologues. It’s as if Cain is inviting you to overhear her rather than truly listen.

This disconnection is part of the album’s power—and its challenge. Perverts is not made for casual consumption. It’s an endurance test, a work that forces the listener to sit with discomfort. There’s no catharsis, no redemption, just the stark beauty of raw emotion and uncompromising vision.

For some, this will be alienating. Fans who came to Cain’s music through the anthemic allure of “American Teenager” may find little here to grasp. But for those willing to engage with its harshness, Perverts offers a different kind of reward. It’s an album that reveals its depths slowly, requiring patience and an openness to discomfort. It’s music as confrontation, as provocation—and, for Cain, as liberation.

In creating this record, Ethel Cain doesn’t just push boundaries; she obliterates them. It’s a polarizing work, and unapologetically so. This is not the album that will bring her to the mainstream, but it is the one that solidifies her as one of the most daring artists of her generation. It’s not here to entertain you; it’s here to unsettle, to provoke thought, and to demand that you confront its world on its own terms. For those willing to take the plunge, Perverts is a harrowing, deeply rewarding journey into the abyss.