Author: Adam Gorecki. Adam is a London-based writer, maker, and photographer with a broad love for anything that catches his curiosity, particularly music. Graduating with a Level 4 Diploma in Copywriting from The College of Media and Publishing, he sees music as a complex social study and is fascinated by how brilliant ideas can be brought to life. He has a critical eye for great storytelling and thrives in exploring the philosophical side behind an artist’s intentions and what can ignite a spark that lasts for generations.

Ethel Cain’s latest EP ‘Perverts’ is not an easy listen. It’s daunting, dark, and eerily intimidating. I was lost for words. Quite frankly, I felt out of my depth. However, I feel like it was intended for me to feel this way. To feel alone, distorted and doomed. Cain once again utilises her Southern Gothic and Baptist background and integrates it into the album to articulate the sensation of feeling watched, judged and abandoned by those who wander in the above. The album leaves you roaming a crooked purgatory, forcing you to uncover the uneasy truths behind love and fear.

We feel this abandonment from the outset. Our title track opens with a crackling, gramophone-like, lo-fi rendition of “Nearer, my God to Thee”. A 19th-century Christian hymn, the final known song to be played upon the sinking of the Titanic. As it fades out, we’re left to feel incredibly cold and alone. Complimented by harrowing instrumentation, a windy, ambient sound embodies the track for multiple minutes and refuses to leave. With an uncomfortable confrontation of taboos, you hear the quietly uttered phrase ‘heaven has forsaken the masturbator’. You may have to hear it a second time to ensure you’ve heard it right. It echoes more. From here, you become accountable for your interaction with the album, you become helpless. You become left alone with sounds more haunting than silence itself.  With that, creates a blend of being God-fearing, as well as fearing the abandonment of God himself. The track finishes with the spoken words “It’s happening to everybody”, cyclically echoes throughout the project.

Songs like the lead single, Punish, offer soft and whispering sounds from the artist, that occasionally transcend itself into brief breaths of angelic vocals which then become squashed by jarring synths and screeching guitar riffs that override the track. It shows we can appreciate the beauty that resides in the suffering that constantly flows throughout the album, that we should maybe feel comforted by the hopeless nature. It’s quite a beautiful section of music on the album and is our closest reach towards a traditional melodic song.

I listen to Pulldrone with the sense of all hope being abandoned. The 15-minute-long track drains you down a dark hole led by slow and whaling violins. There’s a constant churning of the instrument that feels like a never-ending strain of punishment and destined doom. Much reflecting the idea of eternal punishment. Accompanying this is the muffled voice of Hayden reading the ‘12 Pillars of Simulacrum’, a description of ways that humanity attempts to reach God but fails to reach a fulfilling sense of enlightenment. I think the failure of enlightenment is a suitable overall theme for the album. You never quite grasp the protagonist’s true relationship with God, we hear her say: “I want to know what God knows, and I will be with Him”. But what answers back is the mere, endless cries of dreaded instrumentals, which I feel mirrors a silent, overarching judgement that inevitably peers over our protagonist.

 Growing up in the Baptist church, Hayden came out as gay at age 12 and left at age 16 as a transgender woman. However, she still firmly resides with her acknowledgement and belief in God.

“Whether I like it or not, God always has and always will be a huge part of my life. Whether He’s being used as a comforting figure or a threat, I’ve always been surrounded by it. It’s not really something you can walk away from. And I’d rather just sit with it than be like ‘Fuck the church!’”[1]

I’ve always found there to be a fine line between ‘art’ and ‘music’. Being able to distinguish where this line sits is tricky. I wouldn’t resist the uncomfortable feeling of watching Robert Egger’s ‘The Lighthouse’ as I get wildly entertained by this twisted feeling in a movie format. It’s unsettling, but a part of the gig. But listening to Perverts is like watching a horror movie blindfolded. The surrounding immersive nature of the album allows you to feel that you’re listening into a sacred realm that doesn’t welcome you, and that you shouldn’t be hearing. Furthermore, the twisted, confessional nature of the album prompts us to dive into dark truths, many we may be able to relate to. Does this constitute itself as good art? Certainly. Do I see it as an example of good music? Well, I wouldn’t go as far as calling it an album – and neither would Hayden. It’s a harrowing audio experience decorated with a few traditional songs throughout. I’d say it offers a standalone experience, implying that much like a film, the first experience is the most crucial and most relevant. But to answer my own question, in theory, yes – it’s hauntingly beautiful.

 But what I will say is this; if there’s one thing to take away from this project, is that the darkest corners may more often than not offer the most heavy and bitter truths within ourselves. The impending feeling of being watched over, of being judged, can be a very real one. It’s one worth respecting. I think that album is capable of scaring us into accountability. To have respect and love for one another, because mere mortals aren’t capable of knowing who’s really watching.

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[1] Hudnut, Conor (April 25, 2021). “God’s Country: Ethel Cain’s music is an unforgiving portrait of Southern Baptist America”. Hero. Archived from the original on January 10, 2022.