Each week, Consequence’s Songs of the Week roundup spotlights quality new tracks from the last seven days and analyzes notable releases. Find our new favorites and more on our Top Songs playlist, and for other great songs from emerging artists, check out our New Sounds playlist. This week, Ethel Cain goes dark and beautiful on “Vacillator,” a song from her challenging new project Perverts.
For the past two and a half years, Ethel Cain — the recording project of songwriter Hayden Anhedönia — has been the queen of gothic-leaning indie pop. It’s not hard to see why: The songs that helped her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter, become such a breakout success (“American Teenager,” “Strangers,” etc.) straddled the line between baroque pop and depressive indie rock, between Lana Del Rey’s “Mariners Apartment Complex” and Phoebe Bridgers’ “I Know the End.” Smash-cut to just a few days ago, though, when the artist dropped her highly-anticipated follow-up Perverts, and Cain sounds more like she should be playing a slot between Midwife and The Body at this year’s Roadburn Festival.
How’d we get here? A certain subset of fans would certainly like to know: “Stayed up till 12 just to hear 13-minute long love songs filled with nothing but NOISE and barely any lyrics,” one viral reaction read. “I am beyond SICK and pissed??? Where are my heartfelt and relatable yet traumatic lyrics at???” For most artists, such viscerally repulsed responses would signal an unambiguous failure. Yet, for Cain, it’s merely Perverts working exactly as designed.
Sure, it would have been easy for Cain to lean into the pop sensibilities that resulted in songs from Preacher’s Daughter soundtracking several different TikTok trends, but Cain’s relationship with her art and fame is far more complicated. And, really, we should have all seen this coming.
I mean, have you seen the cover art for Perverts? The thing damn near looks like a black metal album. Even more telling was the now-deleted Tumblr post in which Cain made her feelings regarding how some fans engage with her work abundantly clear (lamenting the current “irony epidemic” and signing off with the biting sentiment of, “I miss when I had like 20 fans… I HATE IT HERE”). Such energy, paired with her vocal love of slowcore and ambient music, ultimately manifested in a colossally-sized, intentionally off-putting project made up of extended noise experiments, full-on drone tracks, and glacially-paced outsider rock obsessed with fun topics like masturbation and shame.
But, for as antagonistic as Perverts may come across — especially when two of the first three songs are 12-plus-minute, largely melody-less noise compositions — Cain’s interest in beauty hasn’t gone anywhere; just give “Vacillator” a spin for proof.
After the drone of “Perverts,” the tease of “Punish,” and the dark sonic wasteland of “Houseofpsychoticwomn,” once the listener arrives at “Vacillator,” they’re officially in the eye of the storm. For a brief moment (and, yes, in the context of this record seven minutes is brief), the abrasion of the previous three tracks melts away to reveal a ghostly, slow-moving, stunningly-sung melody.
The track aligns itself with the work of artists like Grouper, leaning on space, relative simplicity, and timbre to make its mark. But make its mark it does, as even with the worrisome lyrics, “Vacillator” is a deeply affecting composition that feels both eerie and strangely comforting, especially within the context of the tracklist. It’s almost like a small reward of (admittedly slightly corrupted) beauty for those willing to follow Cain into her artistic hurricane.
It’s tempting to call “Vacillator” the dessert that comes after the vegetables of the beginning of the record, but perverts like us think the vegetables taste just as delicious. So, we’ll call “Vacillator” what it is: a polarizing, wonderful artistic triumph.
— Jonah Krueger
Editorial Coordinator