Ethel Cain’s debut, 2022’s ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, remains one of the most obsessed-over albums of the decade, a series of southern-gothic murder ballads narrated by a woman already dead. While fans await the next chapter in Hayden Anhedönia’s Daughter of Cain saga, ‘Perverts’ is something else entirely. Alternately billed as a project and an (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) 89-minute EP, it contains little of the familiar – and what is recognisable is chilling in its own way.
The title track opens ‘Perverts’ with a distorted take of the hymn ‘Nearer My God to Thee’, before any sense of light fades away. What follows is a 12-minute drone with queasy, bell-like synth tones and low-intoned spoken word – “Heaven has forsaken the masturbator / It’s happening to everybody”. Four other tracks are in a similar vein: the churning industrial loop of ‘Housofpsychoticwomn’, the electrical-buzz violin of ‘Pulldrone’, and the guitar wall of ‘Thatorchia’ reminiscent of ’90s shoegaze band Lovesliescrushing. Some ambient music is warm and enveloping, but these are brutalist – evoking the awe and dread of witnessing enormous, untouchable structures in the distance.
In the remaining four songs, Anhedönia’s soft vocals bring moments of relief – but even those feel like skeletal versions of her previous work. ‘Vacillator’ is a minimalist country ballad reminiscent of Duster, while ‘Amber Waves’ is the slowest of slowcore – a desolate, almost apathetic portrait of addiction. In each of these songs, she sings of yearning for love and the coldness of its absence. Most severe is the lead single ‘Punish’, written from the perspective of a child molester in self-imposed isolation, which she delivers without distance or judgement – drawing no lines between victim and perpetrator, narrator and character, beauty and abject horror.
‘Perverts’ has none of the musical catharsis or divine absolution of ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, but it would be false to say that its bleakness is absolute. In ‘Pulldrone’, Anhedönia recites her “12 pillars of simulacrum” philosophy – the idea that humanity’s desire to touch god and ultimate inability to reach enlightenment can bring brief moments of relief or be a pathway to self-annihilation.
Similarly, what may sound like a bowel-rattling drone to one may lead to a transcendent experience in others. Casual fans may not last even three minutes. But for those who are willing to sit with its discomfort, ‘Perverts’ reveals hidden depths – the same way that eyes need time to adjust to low light. What it reflects is in the eye of the beholder.
Details
Release date: January 8, 2025
Record label: Daughters of Cain Records
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