“Perverts” by Ethel Cain: Grotesquely Beautiful
Fury Basso-Davis | February 18, 2025
Content warning: this story may be disturbing to some readers. Content includes mentions of experiences with child abuse and murder. Reader discretion is advised.
Ethel Cain's (Hayden Anhedonia) haunting second album “Perverts” is captivating and disturbing in the same way the 2022 horror movie Skinamarink is. What makes “Perverts” so grotesquely beautiful is the mix of lyrics, spoken word and ambient music that speaks of the shame around sex and sexuality. If you are a fan and thought “Preacher’s Daughter," her first album, covers the shame that becomes embedded in you as a result of being a part of the church and the nuclear family, just wait until you hear this one.
When I first listened to “Perverts,” I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, and I wasn’t disappointed. “Perverts” reminds me of an analog horror soundtrack or nightmare, like waking up in a car with no idea where your parents are or being lost with no service in the middle of nowhere and a broken down car with nothing but your mind playing tricks on you.
“Perverts” opens with the first sonnet of “Nearer, My God, to Thee ” by Sarah Flower Adams. The voice is distorted almost as if it was coming out of an old record player, and is accompanied by unsettling droning in the background. After the sonnet ends, the listener is met with silence until the droning comes back again. “Perverts" is the most horrifying part of Preacher’s Daughter, taking on a similarity to Ptolomea. “Perverts” feels like being pulled into the earth by some sort of entity. The droning is like walking back home in the dark with dim street lights leading your way back. It’s like feeling like something or someone is watching you, but you know there’s nothing there. That feeling on the back of your neck as you’d walk to the bathroom at night as a child. There’s nothing watching or waiting the fear is something that you cannot escape.
The second song on the album, “Punish,” was released in Nov. 2024 as a teaser to “Perverts.” “Punish” is about shame, opening with “Whatever's wrong with me I will take to bed.” In “Punish” Cain refers to Gary Plauché, a man who was convicted of murdering Jeffrey Doucet, a child molester who had kidnapped and sexually abused his son. “In the morning I will mar myself again/ He was a natural Plauché, saying, "You won't forget this/ Shame is sharp, and my skin gives so easy/ Only God knows, only God would believe/ That I was an angel, but they made me leave/ They made me leave,” she sings. Before I knew the inspiration for this song, I interpreted it as having a secret that you can never tell anyone about. She sings about how she is punished by love. Since Cain’s lyrics are full of religious references this makes me think about how before I came out, and how I felt like I should be ashamed of who I’m attracted to. The lyric “Shame is so sharp, and my skin gives so easy” makes me think of how no matter how ashamed I was of who I was, I was always going to be that way. In today’s society, being queer is so frowned upon and I think this song speaks on that a lot, especially with the lyrics “I am punished by love,” queer people are seen as sinners and who we love or how we identify is somehow shameful and is something that needs to be punished.
“Houseofpsychoticwomen” is the next song on the album. The way this song opens is interesting to me because it sounds like you’re being hypnotized. It opens with the phrase “I love you” being repeated eight times, each time more intense. It feels like after a breakup and you’re still so desperately in love with the person, and all you can think about is how much love you still have for them. It’s unsettling to listen to and makes you sit with your discomfort. I love how soothing the background is while also feeling like I’m being driven insane by love. Near the end of the song, there’s a sound that makes me think of what it would feel like to have your soul sucked out of your body. At the end of the music it switches to a different tone, leaving you with the loss of the sound you get used to and the loss you feel after a heartbreak.
“Vacillator” is the fourth track on the album. “Vacillator” is about emotional numbness and pleasure. Opening with the sexual lyrics, “You're so smooth/ If you want, you can bite me/ And I won't move.” Vacillator is one of my favorite songs on the album and tells the story of someone who wants to be loved in secret. The lyrics that end the song “If you love me keep it to yourself” repeat three times before it changes to “If you love me then keep it to yourself” as if they are demanding the love to be kept a secret. This song is very melancholic, the beat of the drum in this song reminds me of a heartbeat. I enjoyed how intensely the song ended after how soothed it made me feel.
“Pulldrone” is the longest song on the album at 15 minutes and in my opinion is the most interesting and the centerpiece of the album. Cain opens with a spoken word monologue detailing the ‘12 stages of Simulacrum,’ as she called it in a Tumblr post. The monologue is about the narrator’s ascension into the imitation of reality, the perverse need to stay there and the fall back into reality. The last ten minutes of the song is a terrifying almost hypnotizing droning noise. The stages are as follows: apathy, disruption, curiosity, assimilation, aggrandization, delineation, perversion, resentment, separation, degradation, annihilation and finally desolation. I think that it’s interesting that perversion is the seventh pillar because if you listened to “Preacher’s Daughter" she references “Dante's Inferno” specifically the seventh circle of hell which represents violence and those who have committed physical acts of violence against themselves, nature or others are punished.
The album ends with “Amber Waves.” “Amber Waves” contrasts with the rest of the songs on the album. Cain explained on Tumblr that “Amber” is a personification of “love cast aside to get high.” “Amber Waves” holds the same vulnerability as “Strangers” from Cain's “Preachers Daughter.” The song opens with the same static that all the other songs have incorporated into them but goes in a different direction opening with spoken words asking “Um, I don’t know I-, I- I’ll take that it/ Um how much should I take?” and a male voice answers “I would recommend that you take just as much as you need/ To feel good” providing comfort in the uncomfortable.
“Amber Waves” is my favorite song on “Perverts” and serves as a palette cleanser as the album ends. I love “Amber Waves” because of how it makes me feel. It reminds me of summer winds and is the most beautiful song on the album. Ethel Cain's voice is gorgeous, and the lyrics are moving and vulnerable. My favorite lyric in the song is “Cause the devil I know/ Is the devil I want/ Is it not fun to feel many other ways?” I interpret this as being okay with the “shame” that is ingrained around exploring sexuality, and that it is not shameful to do the things that are considered perverted.
I would recommend listening to “Perverts” because of how different it is from the other music Ethel Cain has put out, and I’ve never heard another album like it. I love how uncomfortable it made me feel and made me want more.