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Ethel Cain, a curated character with a loaded stage name, was conjured to stir a gothic revival in the modern generation. Inspired by the singer’s anecdotal experience, Preacher’s Daughter is a concept album in which Hayden Silas Anhedönia’s truth dwells.
The creation of Ethel Cain spurred Hayden’s yearning to determine oneself. Its biblical overtones deliver the singer’s unique experience—a son [and eventual daughter] born to a deacon and chorister of the Southern Baptist church. Ethel emerged from the clasps of Hayden’s hands.
She is the person I could see myself becoming, and she is the person I don’t want to be. – Hayden Silas Anhedönia
The album direction is harmonised with the singer’s religious underpinnings. Born into the Southern Baptist Convention, a niche which erects a distinctive path, those borne of it are familiar with looming crucifixes, disintegration, abandoned plantation homes overcome with ivy and the death of the Southern Belle.
Sun Bleached Flies
The penultimate song on the album crept its way into my heart. A song spurred by once being at war with oneself, Ethel laments her dissent from the Church. Her audience is gifted with the denouement of her tragedy. Finally, she finds a resolution—forgiveness. Cain coos in consolation to her younger self, now yearning for the House in Nebraska. Once sung as abandoned, she reclaims its significance in her story.
Family Tree
These crosses all over my body
Remind me of who I used to be
Give myself up to him in offering
Let him make a woman out of me
I’m just a child but I’m not above violence
The Gothicism is particularly immersive in this song. Visceral imagery, which connotes Christ’s crucifixion, Ethel announces a surrender to the above. ‘Family Tree’ hammers in the mycelic nature of generational trauma and its autonomous perversions. Cain utilises the juxtaposition of womanhood with childhood to subtly reconcile the dissonance imposed by adulthood. That is, you are no longer a child; you cannot be. Yet, as humans, we are familiar with this chasmic falsity. We are no more infallible than we were as children. We are not any more knowing than before.
Thoroughfare
Introduced with the soft strum of an acoustic guitar and accompanied by Southern Folk’s beloved harmonica, Ethel Cain delivers an ode to her growing journey. Her lead vocal contrasts greatly with the harmonising calls in the background. Hayden has cited Imogen Heap as an influence in her music. This is clear in the two stories being told through musical technicality. The focality directed on the leading voice greatly exacerbates the straying background vocals, like the internal conflict between the mind and the heart.
And you said, “Hey, do you wanna see the West with me?
‘Cause love’s out there and I can’t leave it be”
And I said, “Honey, love’s never meant much to me
But I’ll come with you if you’re sure it’s what you need”
Cain solidifies these diverging stories with her distortion of ‘West’ in a homophonically as ‘worst’.
Prepare for a new Ethel Cain
In light of her new album, ‘Perverts,’ I felt it my mission to push the Ethel Cain agenda. I have not even touched on the intertextual allegories embedded within her lyrics. I fear that it may be too unrelatable or boring for some. But know that she is a prodigy in every element. On January 8th, 2025, she will introduce you to a world so unimaginable yet so subversive.
