Ethel Cain - Perverts
«No one you know is a good person».
One of the most favored alternative artists of our generation returns with a new opus, Perverts: a 90-minute EP, which timing is even longer than her full-length debut, the indie kids’ and TikTok users’ favorite Preacher’s Daughter. The results of such a rewarding work are more terrifying than exciting.
Basically, Perverts came out as more of a horror game score rather than a music product: take tracks like «Perverts», the title track, which features Ethel ominously repeating the word «Masturbator» for 12 minutes, or «Housofpsychoticwomn», a thirteen-minute drone opus that sends you into a panic attack from the endless, monotonous repetition of the phrase «I Love You»: imagine finding your favorite teddy bear from your childhood, its batteries dead, and the only sounds it squeezes are somewhat from the depths of hell. All of this could easily fit into the gameplay of «Silent Hill» or «Resident Evil». Oh, you need a soundtrack for the «Outlast 2» cutscene? Try «Pulldrone», a song built around 12 pillars of simulacrum and reminiscent of a monologue of a madman puritan. Portentously beautiful.
Yet, there are still some echoes of Ethel's old works on this EP. The stunning «Punish» and «Onanist» are just a few tracks on which Ethel actually sings, and while they follow similar structures - a slow start with exploding guitars at the end - they are the best, most memorable and enjoyable (as you please) songs on the album. They're still terse, but lines like «I am punished by love» and «It feels good» stick in your head and haunt you in the nightmares.
Another brilliant of this project is the closing track, «Amber Waves», a song Cain teased on social media long before the release of Perverts. Paying tribute to records from Grouper and Duster, it is perhaps the brightest track on the EP. It’s both a return to humanism and a cautionary message: the entire album is a loop, with each song flowing seamlessly from one to the other, and here the final track feels like a prologue to a play that’s both disturbing and eerie.
The only problem with Perverts is in its sharp turn in Ethel's musical evolution. Fans who came after «American Teenager» blew up on social media are unlikely to listen to this work front to back and give it a positive review. There is no surprise, though: Perverts is a dark, cold, and terrifying record that is difficult to get through without being in a certain mood and place. This project is truly worth listening to, and those who can handle it will get some of the most virtuosic and interesting decisions in Ethel Cain's discography. But how many are there? The beauty of Perverts is not in its rollout and aesthetics, but in the horror, panic, and hopelessness.
7.6/10