EP Review: Ethel Cain - Perverts

An immense exercise towards dark ambient and drone, one that leaves more resonance than expected. ‘Perverts’ delves into the themes of pleasure and punishment, with Ethel Cain bringing enough tunefulness for these songs to reach climactic highs.

‘Perverts’ is an EP that separates away from its former label; a deviation from the stories that Ethel Cain has told in past projects; an elongated project that demands more time and thought now that it avoids conventional structures. What this instead becomes is an embrace of sexual pleasures that is allowed to feel magnetic and spiritual, where masturbation is an action to feel an emotional high and a branch towards reaching the most divine. Yet such pleasures are punished and humiliated by religious sectors, especially towards women who tend to be celebrated for their “purity” and then severely disgraced once their sexual expression becomes too open. It’s a bleak characteristic that Ethel Cain ends off on the last track, ‘Amber Waves’. The search for the divine is destroyed. Nothingness now eats into her feelings like an ouroboros.

On the surface, it may be too easy to classify as a “haunting” record, because in reality, it is more comforting and affirming in expressing the shame and the desire that Ethel Cain has thought about. Even amidst more abstract movements and tones, there still lies the tuneful side that Ethel Cain manages to slide within these songs. The dark ambient and drone segments might leave this wading through the waves far too long, but there are shimmering melodies that tend to reach an emotional climax. ‘Punish’ that begins with meditative pianos and vocal mantras, just before distorted guitars break through the back half; the layers of acoustics and pianos that place a sense of relief on ‘Etienne’; the warbling ambiance of ‘Thatorchia’ that simmers through a chamber of cooing vocals and distorted backdrops; and both ‘Vacillator’ and ‘Amber Waves’ offer the softest and melancholic notes through curtains of slowcore melodies, amplifying the former’s sexual yearning, and the latter’s emotional emptiness.

A curiosity towards something new for Ethel Cain, ‘Perverts’ delves deep into ambient tones, and comes out relishing in the desire to feel a heavenly touch through means of pleasure. An immense wave of dark ambient, drone, and slowcore that simultaneously sounds punishing and relieving. The kind of stimulation that, for the most part, gets close to that divine satisfaction.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘Punish’, ‘Vacillator’, ‘Etienne’, ‘Thatorchia’, ‘Amber Waves’

Least Favorite Track: ‘Pulldrone’