Written by Gail Quick
Genre: drone, ambient, experimental, art rock
Key words: religious, explicit, complex, intense, eerie
Introduction
Hayden Anhedönia (Ethel Cain) pushes the boundaries of mainstream music with her sophomore album—Perverts. Diverging from the accessible pop anthems and melodic storytelling of Preacher’s Daughter, she instead veers in a much darker and more mature direction, drawing inspiration from the minimalism of ambient and drone music. Devoid of standalone tracks (minus
“Punish”—released as a single), Anhedönia creates collages of sound that focus on texture and atmosphere over melody. More traditional tracks such as “Punish” and “Vacillator,” provide a brief release from Anhedönia’s landscape of darkness and dread through harnessing the delicate, yet powerful vocals she’s revered for. Less of an album, and more of an auditory experience, Perverts was meant to be listened to in its entirety—not chopped up and put into playlists.
This album continues Preacher’s Daughter’s theme of religious trauma—commenting specifically on sexual shame and sins of that nature. Tackling ideas such as sinning, spirituality, sexual deviance, “love” (more on that later), and how these themes tie back to God, religion, and spirituality.
However, as stated by Anhedönia herself, this project has nothing to do with Preacher’s Daughter’s lore.
The inspiration from this album comes from Anhedönia’s religious upbringing, but also from Donald Ray Pollock’s novel, Knockemstiff; and a Pennsylvania power plant. Knockemstiff is a collection of related stories about the deviant residents of Midwestern town ridden with violence, drug addiction, and sexual abuse. The power plant is Bruce Mansfield plant in Shippingport, PA.
On Instagram, as @mothercain, she wrote:
I accidentally discovered the defunct Bruce Mansfield plant in Shippingport, PA on a late night drive along the Ohio river while I was living in Coraopolis… I spent multiple nights a week parked on the side of the road outside that plant the entire 9 months I lived in Coraopolis; I’d drive up the river in the middle of the night and sit there for hours, admiring the sheer might of the towers and how beautiful and resolute they stood against the grey night sky. They became a beacon of religiosity, of sexual liberation and enjoyment, of contentedness. When I would drive home, I would masturbate in the dark and think about them and only them… Perverts wouldn’t exist without Bruce Mansfield and neither would the person I am today.
Bruce Mansfield power plant, Shippingport, PA
“Perverts”
The opening title track, “Perverts,” is a bold 12:04 minutes long and opens with a warbling, ominous, “Nearer, my God to Thee,” immediately setting the religious tone of the album. The vocals become increasingly distorted before dropping off completely into near silence—only a light drone remaining. A deep voice chants, “Heaven has forsaken the masturbator / masturbator / masturbator,” bringing a sense of shame to the listener. An ominous, barely audible “No one you know is a good person,” at 5:13 supports the idea of religious shame as masturbation is a sin that nearly everyone does—thus making nobody a good person.
Anhedönia paints landscapes of dissonance and texture through sound alone—manipulating the push and pull of anxiety inducing noise versus hesitantly comforting stillness. Eerie and complex, the opening track establishes the tone for the rest of the album.
“Punish”
The next song, “Punish,” released as a single on November 1st, 2024, is one of the more traditionally accessible songs on the album, but has a disturbing backstory behind its lyrics. As stated by @mothercain on Tumblr, “‘Punish’ is about a pedophile who was shot by the child’s father and now lives in exile where he physically maims himself to simulate the bullet wound in order to punish himself.” The uncomfortable and dark subject matter challenges the idea of creation by God. Was this sexual deviant created that way by God, and if so, what does that tell us about the nature of God and his creations? However, Anhedönia on Tumblr states that “the song can be whatever you want it to be.” Despite the nature of the song’s content, the music itself invokes Anhedönia’s chilling vocals along with powerful distortion and emotional rawness at its climax.
“Houseofpsychoticwomn”
Not a typo—it’s womn. The only word to describe this song is “unsettling”. The song opens with a hypnotic and swirling guitar. The track’s 13:35 minutes is primarily composed of a distorted voice chanting “I love you” at the listener while the swirling guitar in the background creates an ominous, yet structured atmosphere. The initial “I love you” chants could be perceived by the listener as soft, tender, and loving. These chants are then broken up by a whispered voice monologuing about love. The passage:
Until then, I guess I’ll just lie here and wait
Wait for it to come back
Wait for it to love me again
Do you think you know how to give up
Do you think you understand what it means to be loved
You don’t, and you never will
But I can tell you right now
It’s beautiful
gives the song an obsessive undertone, further supported by the line, “Such a wonderful and painful thing to be loved.” As the “I love you” chants pick up again, the swirling guitars become faster and louder. The chanting turns unsettling and angry—psychotic. Near the end of the track, the chanting loses structure and starts echoing itself, becoming muddled, while a background buzz continues to crescendo before cutting out completely, leaving a few trailing “I love you” chants before immediately proceeding to the next track.
“Vacillator”
Considerably the most accessible track on Perverts, “Vacillator,” approaches the subject of lust and love in a more traditional way. The song explicitly describes the physical sensations and enjoyment derived from sex. However, the song only focuses on the physical and shuts out the emotional—repeatedly singing, “If you love me / Keep it to yourself” to end the track. This could also be interpreted as an answer to the “I love you” chants from “Houseofpsychoticwomn.” The act of sex for pleasure and not procreation ties into the album’s theme of sexual deviance and sin.
“Onanist”
Onanism is the act of masturbation. It also refers to the gratification or satisfaction of one’s own desires. Continuing along with the idea of sexual deviance this song describes the morality and gratification of the act of masturbating. The verse:
There I found me in a long, long wood
Astray, midway of mortal life
Witness to such agony
But there, before the grace of God go I
I want to know love
I want to know what it feels like
ties back to the line, “Heaven has forsaken the masturbator,” from the opening track. It’s implied that the individual has been forsaken by God due to sinning.
At the line, “I want to know love,” powerful and sweeping guitars enter the soundstage, creating a cry of desperation and longing. The guitars build and create a crackling and chaotic collage of sound before dropping off, leaving behind a chilling whir.
The song closes with Anhedönia repeatedly saying, “It feels good.” The repetition and delivery is reminiscent of the way one feels during climax. The self gratification derived from the act outweighs the immorality that has been defined previously and eventually takes over. The song ends with a slow fade out of the background fuzz—much like the refractory period after orgasm.
“Pulldrone”
“The wax and the wane, the pull and the drone, it’s life” –Hayden Anhedönia
At 15:14 minutes, “Pulldrone,” stands out as the longest track on the album. The length and complexity of the piece demands the listener’s full attention. The track begins with a monologue/poem composed of twelve parts, each exploring a different aspect of enlightenment and the human journey—the search for meaning and spirituality within an indifferent universe. The divine vs the flesh.
The piece begins with Apathy—a state of detachment and disconnection from one’s self and/or higher power. It then moves to Disruption, implying that some type of realization breaks through the narrator’s numbness and disconnection with the world. Curiosity, Assimilation, and Aggrandization explore the narrator’s desire for understanding; the absorption of spiritual enlightenment that comes with knowledge and understanding; and the desire for more—for something greater than oneself. Delineation is the cumulation of this experience and the narrator’s desire to transcend human limitations and become one with God.
At the halfway mark, the journey begins to take a darker turn. Perversion refers to deception and distortion, along with sexual connotations discussed in many previous songs. The narrator speaks of “The sinner’s errand,” followed by the line “I am what I am but we are not the same.” This could refer to the fact that despite spiritual enlightenment, the narrator is still bound by human limitation. Perversion could both represent the deceptive idea that humans could become one with God, and the self-gratifying human nature and desire for pleasure that doesn’t align with divine principles.
Resentment extrapolates the idea that humans are still bound by the limitations of existence. The narrator grapples with a building hatred towards everything they have worked for in pursuit of spirituality and transcendence. “Are these laurels to be proud of? / Let me tell you how much I’ve come to hate you since / I began to live.”
Separation suggests the narrator’s fall from grace due to Perversion and/or Resentment. “I was an angel, though plummeting / The stars are as beams shining through the wheel / I am sure that Hell must be cold.” Degradation exhibits the result of this fall from grace, directly referencing “Punish,” with the only line from this section being: “Nature chews on me.” In this context, it depicts the destruction of the narrator’s physical and spiritual self.
Annihilation depicts the return to normalcy after spiritual enlightenment, referencing “the great dark.” The narrator declares, “I will claw my way back to the Great Dark and we will not speak of this place again,” shunning the divine after failing to reach it due to the bounds of human flesh. In the pursuit of transcendence, annihilation is the ultimate consequence.
The final section, Desolation, returns to the ideas of Apathy. The narrator references Onanism and Ouroboros—the snake eating its own tail. The juxtaposition of these two ideas symbolizes the eternal cycle of life and death, destruction and rebirth, propelled by self destruction and self-gratisfaction.
Therein lies sacred geometry of onanism
Of ouroboros
Of punishment
I am that I was as I no longer am for I am nothing
Amen
Desolation portrays the journey to enlightenment as cyclical, eventually leading back to the original detachment the narrator began at. The pursuit of enlightenment ultimately leads to self-destruction.
The piece continues as purely instrumental, focusing around an intense drone sound, depicting the pain of transcendence, human limitation, and the eventual nothingness we all emerge from and will eventually return to.
Through her lyricism, Anhedönia paints a portrait of the human struggle rich in imagery and metaphor. Her ability to explore such deep and overarching topics in unconventional ways sets her apart from other mainstream artists of today, particularly due to the inaccessibility of this project.
“Etienne”
An instrumental piece, Etienne draws from the inspirations of neoclassical architect, Étienne-Louis Boullée. Boullée’s work was characterized by the lack of ornamentation, grandiose geometric forms, and repeating elements. Similarly, the main focus of the song, a dissonant piano, mirrors the vastness and emptiness of Boullée’s work.
Project for a royal library, 1785.
Project for the interior of a metropolitan church, 1780/1781.
The closing monologue of this track comes from an old sermon tape from the 1970’s and 1980’s and is another commentary on the human condition. The audio tells the story of a man who decides to kill himself by inducing a heart attack through running—yet after repeated attempts, fails to do so. Running symbolizes the ongoing battle between wanting to die and the stubborn instinct to survive—the struggle between life and death. The repeated attempts to take his own life inadvertently create some type of resilience.
After a week, “He felt so good that he didn’t want to kill himself anymore.” Ironically, the repeated attempts to take his own life through running ended up revitalizing his body and spirit, restoring his will to live. Leaving the track on a note of hope.
“Thatorchia”
A word made up by Anhedönia. She defines it as, “The bitter acceptance of the knowledge that God will let you near but he won’t let you stay.” “Thatorchia” is a purely instrumental track that demonstrates Anhedönia’s ability to compile sound into complex and haunting landscapes.
“Amber Waves”
A lush and rich conclusion to Perverts, “Amber Waves” depicts a person caught within the cycle of addiction and the internal conflict that results. The phrase ‘amber waves’ is a complex and layered metaphor with multiple interpretations.
Before she leaves
Amber waves at me
Days go by
Time on without me
I’ll be alright
Amber waves could be a metaphor for an addictive substance and the feeling of hope and euphoria associated with it. Amber is also a viscous, slow moving substance that traps things within it, much like drug addiction. Another interpretation is that the protagonist’s partner has left them due to their addiction. Later in the song, the line: “Yet here I am, empty / Watching love of mine leave,” supports any and all of these interpretations. Amber could be a person or a substance, but it is something deeply loved by the protagonist.
As the track progresses, the protagonist falls deeper into the cycle of addiction. The line, “The devil I know is the devil I want,” reflects the cyclical nature of the human experience discussed in previous songs.
Near the end of the song, at the lowest point of the protagonist’s despair and addiction, the line, “You were nothing to me,” implies the destruction of the protagonist’s ability to connect with the world, eventually culminating with the final line: “I can’t feel anything.”
Haunting and powerful, “Amber Waves” is the cumulation of the themes explored in Perverts, creating a narrative that many listeners who expected another Preacher’s Daughter yearned for. The instrumentals that conclude the song linger—reminiscent of amber waves.
Conclusion
Personally, I believe this album to be a masterpiece through and through. I consider Ethel Cain’s Preacher’s Daughter to Perverts along the same pipeline as Radiohead’s OK Computer to Kid A. An artist that broke into the mainstream and gained a huge following that decides to release something unconventional—off-putting even. I greatly admire artists who choose to create unique and indigestible art—who push the boundaries of music—instead of catering to what the public wants or what will get the most radio play. This is an album that was meant to be listened to in one sitting, with really good headphones, and in a very somber mood.
Hayden Anhedönia creates music solely to please herself—and I for one, happen to be a huge fan.
Author’s Note
A lot of research was put into writing this article. As someone who is not religious, I was afraid I wouldn’t catch many symbols and their meanings. I also wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing any backstory behind songs. Sometimes, it was just hard to interpret certain parts of songs! A big help was this website:
And many official statements were made on Ethel Cain’s Tumblr and Instagram.
https://www.tumblr.com/mothercain https://www.instagram.com/mothercain/
I would also like to state that there was ZERO use of AI when creating this article. Google thesaurus? Yes! ChatGPT? NO!!!
If you’re reading this all the way down here, thanks! I put a lot of time and effort into this article so I appreciate it!
