In the age of music that we live in, I’ve noticed that it’s difficult to find an artist who truly connects with you by speaking to your heart and soul. I’ve always flocked towards alternative music, finding long-time comfort in male-dominated rock and roll genres. Most artists, especially women singer-songwriters, that I enjoy are far and few in between. This is simply because women in alternative music don’t come around as often as their male counterparts. This distressing notion is exactly why discovering Ethel Cain and her music felt like hitting a goldmine.
The 27-year-old alternative artist’s real name is Hayden Silas Anhedonia. However, she goes by the stage name Ethel Cain to tell a story, despite not truly bringing the character into fruition until her 2022 debut & only released album, Preacher’s Daughter.
Within seconds of playing the opening track to her Golden Age EP, I felt an intense, soothing connection with her music that felt refreshing and brand new. Cain’s dark lyricism, haunting vocals, and brooding instrumentals that take up most of her discography are all masterpieces in my mind. She quickly became my favorite artist and has now taken up my number one artist on Spotify for four years in a row. Contrary to the music I had grown up on, which mostly just felt like grown men complaining about their grown-men lives. While some of the themes connected back to my life & experiences, I often found myself trying to convince myself that I related to these men just because I liked how their band sounded. Ethel Cain offered me solace in a way that I didn’t think could be achieved through music. It felt like being personally reached out to and taken care of just by putting on a song. Finding this type of comfort was otherworldly, and happened when I least expected it. While only having one official album released, to me and an ever-growing fanbase of people who enjoy her music, it never gets old.
In November of last year, Ethel Cain released a single simply titled “Punish”, which had a similar vibe to other songs she has released; something was coming. On January 8th of this year, Ethel Cain released a new EP simply titled Perverts, which brought out an entirely new version of her music. Unlike her other EPs, Golden Age and Inbred, which feature powerful vocals and intense lyricism, there were next to no lyrics whatsoever; 90 minutes of dark, ominous ambience noise music. While this project in and of itself is grim, and masterfully written, it didn’t fit with the rest of the lore of Preacher’s Daughter. Perverts told a different story of someone else entirely. Largely active on Tumblr, Cain made mentions of a sophomore album that would enlarge the story begun in Preacher’s Daughter (shares the life of Ethel Cain, an American teenage girl who grew up as–-you guessed it–a preacher’s daughter). She dives deep into themes of religious trauma, family issues, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and addiction that happened throughout the character’s life, inspired heavily by Anhedonia’s real experiences growing up as a deacon’s daughter in Tallahassee, Florida.
On March 23rd, Ethel Cain announced a sophomore album that will serve as a prequel to Preacher’s Daughter, taking place in 1986, Ethel confirmed that as “the year that everything changed.” It will focus on the life of Willoughby Tucker, a lover of Cain’s and her muse for “A House in Nebraska,” the third track on Preacher’s Daughter. This album is aptly named Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You. Shortly after the original announcement, Cain confirmed on Instagram with a story reading “This is the B sides,” (assumedly from Preacher’s Daughter.) Along with this, she also announced the album’s companion tour, the Willoughby Tucker Forever Tour. This is her fourth tour and will be spanning from August to November of 2025, as the album’s release is planned for early August.