Ethel Cain, the forehead-tattooed swamp queen of the Southern Gothic aesthetic and internet beef with Lana Del Rey, released her second studio album: “Willoughby Tucker I’ll Always Love You,” on August 8th, featuring ten total tracks.
The pseudonym she has chosen, “Ethel Cain”, bears the weight of her internalized biblical concept of evil. Her surname references the biblical story of Cain, who enviously killed his brother Abel and is regarded by the Book of Genesis to be a parable of sin and the first murder. Within her work, Ethel Cain debates the religious concept of evil in the context of where she first faced it, through indoctrination under Southern Baptism. This conflict study, between religious ultimatums of good and evil and flawed human nature in the presence of temptation, continues in her newest album.
The subject of the album, “Willoughby Tucker,” is a character Ethel Cain struggles to love as they both grow up in their restrictive religious environment. Though masked by the soft sound of pop, Ethel Cain experiments with her frustration towards a religion meant to bring her to godliness but instead divides her from love.
The final track runs for over fifteen minutes and takes the name: “Waco, Texas.” This title directly references the 51 day standoff between the Branch Davidian religious cult and the FBI which took place in Waco, Texas, 1993. This namesake is a striking lead into Ethel Cain’s exploration of how a follower’s obsession with religion can lead to disaster. Within her work, Ethel Cain grasps how a personal feeling of chaos attached itself to a religion’s promised order and descended into her own lived turmoil.
To achieve this theme of turbulence, Ethel uses discordant melodies heard in her song “Dust Bowl”. “Dust Bowl” is not necessarily a loud song, but its beat resembles a ticking time bomb and builds up anticipation of disaster. The serious weight beneath her “airy” pop category is evident in this song.
The melody of Ethel’s memory of Willoughby is continuously interrupted with the tension of knowing their time together had always been limited, even while it lasted. Her music is a haunting experience meant to linger past the end of her tracks.