Perverts
by Ethel Cain

released: 08/01/2025
runtime: 89:20
genres: drone, dark ambient

review written: 18/12/2025
listened: 10x

★★★★☆

January’s EP from Ethel Cain, a project made by Hayden Anhedönia, was certainly a stark departure from her earlier work. Whilst ‘August Underground’ off of her debut album Preacher’s Daughter was certainly drone-focused ambient, it served more as an interlude to the album, rather than being the main event. Perverts takes ‘August Underground’ to its extreme: endless noisy, dirty textures, distorted spoken word vocals, and an extremely uncomfortable atmosphere.

It’s a relentless listen. The lyrics of the EP deal with various perversions, often told from the perspective of the so-called pervert themselves. The only single, ‘Punish’, is one of the more sonically approachable songs off the album. Even so, it is far from a relaxing listen. There is a constantly-playing recording of a creaky swing set Anhedönia recorded on her phone. The song starts with just piano, the swing set, and Anhedönia’s haunting vocals, before distorted and reverberated guitars slowly come in, followed by staticky drones transforming the song into a disturbing soundscape. It has the strongest focus on lyrics of any track on the EP; they are closest to the front of the mix as they will ever be on this release, and the song puts a heavier emphasis on vocal melody and the distortion is basically absent. The content of the lyrics, are certainly not as easily digestible as the way they are sung: it tells the story of a pedophile who self-harms after committing child sexual abuse.

The rest of the release is similarly heavy. The drones are constant, distortion inevitable, and the lyrics, when present, are nothing less than obsessively eerie. Lyrics are constantly being repeated (the phrase “I love you” is said no less than 120 times on ‘Housofpsychoticwomn’, each time with so much distortion its difficult to even make out), adding to the obsession of the record. Its length, too, contributes to this; with a runtime of nearly 90 minutes spread across 9 songs, the experience of listening to this feels oppressive and never-ending, in a extremely well-crafted way. The second half of Onanist, I think, embodies this perfectly. Especially when performed live, the heaviness of this song is crushing and all-encompassing, leaving no room for anything other than awe and horror.

I love how unapologetically uncomfortable this release is. By not shying away from uncomfortable topics, the listener is forced to engage with the album sincerely. Anhedönia has clearly not made any compromises on this album (as she has mentioned having to do for both her albums), and letting the artistic vision be unhindered is what really pushes Perverts to the next level.

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