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Jan 10, 2025 Web Exclusive By Marc Abbott

Perverts is a quietly devastating body of work from a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist whose grasp of tone, pacing, and production lends almost unbearable emotional weight to what always promised to be an intense musical experience.

The temptation to follow 2022’s Preacher’s Daughter with a collection of similarly chilling songs to propel Ethel Cain (the recording persona of 26-year-old Hayden Anhedönia) to a new level of mainstream fame has been resisted. Instead, she delivers an almost 90-minute project that feels like the aural and emotional equivalent of being slowly, yet willingly, driven over by a 10-ton truck.

This record might surprise some listeners. There is no “American Teenager” here, no killer hooks, no singalongs. If you were expecting radio-friendly bangers, you were probably already barking up the wrong tree. Instead, the self-produced Perverts doubles down on the experimental promise of Preacher’s Daughter’s “Ptolemaea” and “Televangelism,” and is shot through with slowcore, drone, noise, ambient—colossal synth-driven instrumentals threaded with poetry—yet still a handful of vocal performances that showcase Cain’s peerlessly haunting tone. And when those vocals rise to the top, they hit so much harder by virtue of their sparseness across almost 90 minutes of sonic experimentation and heavy soundscapes. It is an atmospheric, arresting listen.

Twelve-minute opener “Perverts” begins with a chilling rendition of the hymn “Nearer, My God, To Thee” (perhaps in reference to the character of Ethel’s ascent to heaven at the close of Preacher’s Daughter; or, without becoming mired too deeply in “Ethel lore,” the arrival of her mother) before transitioning to sparse, ambient instrumentation, driven by droning synth that echoes like a digitized church bell. Muffled words cut through the mist, stating “Heaven has forsaken the masturbator” (a theme resurrected throughout the album). Recent single “Punish”—one of few purely sung performances here—follows, dripping in emotion and fuelled by friend and collaborator Angel Diaz (aka Vyva Melinkolya) on lap-steel and overdriven baritone guitar. The waves of trance-inducing ambience on “Houseofpyschoticwomn” meld a devotional spoken refrain of “I love you” with music that sounds like Blanck Mass jamming in a church basement. It’s followed by “Vacillator,” on which Cain softly chimes “I could make you cum 20 times a day” alongside Matthew Tomasi’s high-in-the-mix, funereal drums (remarkably, the only percussion on the entire record). The piano on “Onanist” (there’s that theme again) sounds like it was recorded in an abandoned, haunted warehouse, before this track—the shortest here, at a mere 6:24 runtime—erupts into an earthmoving crescendo of synth distortion. The dizzying “Pulldrone” wins the award for possibly the only track you’ll hear this year to feature a hurdy gurdy (yes, really), while “Etienne” rewards with a grounding acoustic guitar piece performed by regular collaborator Bryan De Leon. The final 19 minutes commence with “Thatorchia,” on which Anhedönia channels Liz Harris of Grouper, with waves of heavyweight bass, drone, and looped chants finally breaking into a froth of overdriven electric guitar that feels like the culmination of being edged for the best part of an hour. Album closer “Amber Waves” is the sucker punch: 11 and a half minutes of crippling beauty and devastation which reunites not only Anhedönia and Diaz, but also adds Madeline Johnston (aka Midwife) to the mix. Her guitar performance, echoing like grief itself, completes the holy trinity of fuzzed out slowcore.

Perverts elicits an emotional response. It might leave you feeling bereft, it might nourish you. Its sheer intensity has the power to incapacitate. But its passion, its production, and Anhedönia’s carefully chosen collaborators elevate it from merely an expectation-confounding volte-face to something far greater: a musical assemblage of integrity and bravery, a new benchmark, and the epitome of a no-skip album. (www.daughtersofcain.com)

Author rating: 9/10