Three years on from her 2022 debut, the Preacher’s Daughter has fallen from grace. Rather than softening god-fearing anthems behind a veil of ethereal gothic pop, Perverts foregoes the foreplay; in a tar-smeared drone of corrosive blasphemy and dark ambience, Ethel Cain nosedives into the haunting depths of a sexually tormented and guilt-ridden mind.
Perverts isn’t the kind of record you want to listen to in the dark. Its uncanny ambient whir scratches at your senses, never providing a moment of reprieve; every moment of ‘silence’ is tinged by a low hum background noise, as if something is always lying in wake, preparing to pounce. It’s a listening experience that feels perverted in itself, as if Cain is in the room, breathing down your neck, enjoying the paranoia she is forcing you to experience. Yet it also makes voyeuristic perverts of its listeners; as the opening title-track’s soundscape unfolds, long, droning pauses thick with tension, you slowly edge into desperation, longing for Cain to reveal her secrets.
