Photo by Silken Weinberg

The beautiful thing about an artist like Ethel Cain writing a song like “Punish” after becoming a pop culture ceebrity and gaining mainstream appeal through her Swiftian twist on Southern gothic Americana is that it will in turn introduce all of those American teenagers cult worshipping at her alter to much obscure pursuasians that have otherwise existed right under their noses this entire time. The listen inhabits a darker, heavier atmosphere than that heard on 2022 atmospherically folk-laden breakthrough debut, Preacher’s Daughter, with Hayden Anhedonia’s vocals swelled dense in reverb and its cataclysic break engulfing it into droning, metallic feedback. “Only God would believe / That I was an angel, but they made me leave,” she sings. The likes of Zola Jesus, Chelsea Wolfe, Grouper, Pharmakon, and Midwife have all ran so that someone like Ethel Cain could walk, and she’s making every one of those steps count in her continued ascent, even in her great Luciferian fall.

Directed by: Hayden Anhedonia & Silken Weinberg

Ethel Cain’s Perverts will be released January 8th on Daughters of Cain.