Ethel Cain - Perverts Album Review

With her newest project, Ethel Cain sets out to make a proper goth album.

Be ready to be thrown for a loop with Ethel Cain’s newest project. Perverts is gothic in every sense of the word; it’s punishing, harrowing, atmospheric, and cold to the bone.

Up until this point, Ethel Cain had been a bewitching indie darling with a cool, Southern Gothic aesthetic. But besides the aesthetic, her music was primarily conventional, indie pop that veered to the darker side with anthemic bangers like “American Teenager.” Her newest album, however, is a 90-minute project of mostly oppressive drone music, with each track averaging at around 7 minutes. The tracklist sways from atmospheric and melancholic piano-led songs like “Punish” and “Etienne” to gothic and medieval folk with tracks like “Pulldrone,” which reminds me of something from Lingua Ignota’s last album with its chilling strings. The penultimate track, “Thatorchia,” sounds like it landed straight off a Grouper album in the best way possible with its stormy ambiance.

Perverts is an impressive and unconventional left turn for Ethel Cain to make, and overall, the album achieves what she set out to do. The music here is challenging and abrasive, and I would only recommend it to fans of experimental music, but I overall found the album to be chillingly beautiful and perfect for these long and cold winter months.

Rating: 8/10.