When Ethel Cain’s not talking about her favorite Tumblr Yaoi or excitedly showing fans her Legend of Zelda Collection, she’s creating one of the most disturbing albums you’ve ever heard. A lot of listeners are divided on Cain’s latest offering Perverts. Some have praised the album for its dark atmosphere and its exploration of Christian trauma and shame, while others claim it lacks substance when compared with Cain’s other works. While it is certainly a departure from Preacher’s Daughter, there is something to enjoy about the work’s haunting nature. As Cain the artist allows us to feel somewhat closer to her, it’s not always a comfortable process. Here are my personal thoughts on each song and the narrative this album is trying to form.
Perverts
A common theme throughout this song is shame—especially around impure thoughts and self-gratification—and how it can create existential dread. How is a basic trait in all sexually reproductive species also something you can go to Hell for?
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It’s interesting that the song begins with the Christian hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee, a hymn that retells the parable of Jacob’s Ladder (for the uninitiated: this parable tells the story of God’s initiative to connect Heaven and Earth) before devolving into the dark ambient drone we hear while an insidious sounding heavily distorted voice occasionally blurts out phrases. Making that eerie-sounding hymn for Jacob’s Ladder seem more comforting as the rest of the 12-minute song goes more in the direction of The Tower of Babel.
Punish
Punish is the lead single for Perverts released months prior to release. This piano ballad features vocals from Cain: we hear moans on the track, but it’s left ambiguous whether they’re moans of pleasure or pain, reinforcing the album’s themes intertwined desire and suffering. The contrast presents the idea of Christianity selling itself as pure and righteous while beneath the surface there’s so much suffering that gets ignored, hidden, or even justified. The fact that these ,pams are coming from another room makes it even more disturbing, as if something dark is happening just out of sight, and the divine music is being used to drown it out. It’s even more eerie when you consider Ethel’s explanation for the song which is:
“Punish is about a pedophile who was shot by the child’s father and now lives in exile where he physically maims himself to simulate the bullet wound in order to punish himself.”
I believe this messaging calls out how Christian doctrine often focuses on the sinner’s soul rather than tending to the people they’ve hurt through their actions. The church tends to frame sin as something you confess or repent and move on, from rather than something with real-world, reverberating consequences.
Houseofpsychoticwomen
In this song, we hear the phrase I love you repeated, making it feel threatening and more like an unwanted advance. The sound plays into that tension between desire, power, and control: eventually it stops being about love and starts feeling more like possession or coercion. Women are taught to fear their sexuality while being simultaneously subjected to it, and the instrumentals here capture that contraction, along with the dread and unease that comes with it. The result makes us feel as though we’re trapped in a space where we’re being guilt-tripped for something we didn’t ask for.
Vacillator
This song sounds sensual and romantic on the surface, but in reality, it is anything but. The term vacillator refers to someone indecisive and unable to commit to a relationship, and this definition is highlighted by the emotional manipulation presented within the song’s narrative. I believe the song is about a relationship dynamic where one person—presumably a woman—tries to seek validation from her partner through sexual favors, only for her partner to distance himself from her out of shame. The line “If you love me, keep it to yourself” shows that he wants intimacy but can’t face the reality of it, so instead of taking responsibility, he pushes the shame onto her. I’d argue that this song makes a broader statement on how religious guilt feeds into toxic relationship dynamics by showing the gendered way Christian guilt works and how women are treated more harshly in the religion. Women are often portrayed as virgins or temptresses in Christianity, while men are given the space to act on their sexual desires while escaping accountability for those actions.
Onanist
One of the common themes of Perverts is repetition. The use of rings in visual material for the album symbolizes endless cycles, while the songs often repeat phrases throughout, creating a narrative about being trapped in purgatory. On Onanist, the record player starts and stops at the beginning in a brilliant reinforcement of this theme. The line repeated in this song comes towards the end, when we hear Ethel Cain say “It feels good” but in a way that feels insincere. Onanist is a term used to describe someone who practices self-gratification, with this knowledge I believe the melancholy instrumentals could be tied to shame, and the repeated line being delivered in a shameful tone almost feels like a confession that keeps being made over and over.
Here, the use of repetition comments on the cycle of guilt and indulgence embedded in sex, where one is constantly repenting, constantly failing to meet moral expectations, and constantly feeling like they need to “start over” spiritually.
Pulldrone
What I enjoy about Pulldrone is how it transitions from Onanist, moving from immediate shame into a detached clinical analysis of how that shame develops. In that same numbing voice, Cain breaks lust into steps, mirroring the way religious teachings on sin often try to map it out as a path to corruption instead of an element of being human. The 1st 3 steps noted—apathy, disruption, and curiosity—lead me to believe that it could be a commentary on puberty being an already vulnerable time in one’s life and how adding the fear of going to hell for thoughts and feelings teens don’t fully understand contributes to religious trauma in a huge capacity. The numbing voice of Pulldrone almost feels like a result of that conditioning.
Etienne
Etienne is a lo-fi track with a beautiful melancholy vibe, but what stands out most is the part at the end. We hear what sounds to be a news channel narrating a story of a man who tries to kill himself by inducing a heart attack. He achieves this by running every day in the hopes of his heart giving out, and he keeps trying this until eventually he no longer wants to die. This makes for a fascinating contrast, as much of Perverts uses cycles as a way to convey shame and suffering. In this song, however, it is used to show hope by paralleling the story of Sisyphus.
Thatorchia
According to Cain, the term thatorchia is a word she made up to describe the bitter acceptance of the knowledge that God will let you near, but won’t let you stay. I feel like this term is so fitting when describing how most Christian organizations treat queer people: you might be welcomed at first, but the moment you exist too authentically, you’re pushed out.
That false sense of belonging, followed by rejection, is such a painful cycle, and Ethel Cain turning that into its own word feels like a poetic act of defiance in itself. As for the song itself, it feels like a literal take on the term as its ambiance is that of a dusty apocalyptic wasteland with siren-like sounds growing louder throughout the track, possibly coming from a deity. It could also be about how religious trauma can feel like being stuck in limbo, searching for something that keeps slipping away still trying to hold onto faith despite knowing you’ll be turned away.
Amber Waves
The album’s final song is, in my opinion, the most haunting and tragic. My theory is that Amber, this warm golden fossilized resin often considered associated with light and divinity in many cultures, symbolizes heaven. It’s an ideal the narrator has to let go of, watching something beautiful fade away and waving goodbye to the possibility of salvation. The track’s somber instrumentals amplify these feelings of sorrow, making this ending feel more like a funeral than a resolution. For many transgender and queer people, religious trauma doesn’t just leave someone angry or rebellious: it can leave them completely empty and unable to process emotions. At the song’s final moment, Ethel Cain says “I can’t feel anything” and it hits harder than a mantis shrimp.
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