Content Warning: The following review contains references to a sexual act that is a subject covered in the album being reviewed.
“Perverts” by Ethel Cain (Hayden Silas Anhedönia) is an artistic, devastatingly good album, inspired by brutalist architecture and the concept of “The 12 Pillars of Simulacrum.” It reveals how music can bring us closer to the Divine, leaning on various erotic themes.
The EP is a haunting soundscape that could be the score for an A24 gothic horror film.
The project bears no relation to “Preacher’s Daughter,” her previous project, other than similar production— a recurring distorted voice and shrieking guitar akin to “Ptolemaea” appear in certain moments, and flickers of “August Underground” resurface at the end of “Amber Waves.”
We are even visited by a Southern Baptist preacher in “Etienne,” the older, darker sister of “Televangelism.”
There are far fewer lyrics to digest on this ambient record, but they pack a punch, constantly repeating themselves to overwhelm the listener.
Anhedönia’s vocals are a reprieve from the onslaught of sounds that wallop eardrums for 90 minutes. The layered angry winds, buzzing static, distant wailing, whirling alarms and growling drones are enough to make you levitate (or trigger tinnitus).
Pressing play on “Perverts” is like consenting to being possessed. It captures you within the first few minutes and leaves you empty when the last words are spoken: “I can’t feel anything.”
The EP opens with a chilling, lo-fi rendition of “Nearer My God to Thee,” a familiar Christian hymn. After hearing the first few seconds of the opening track at midnight on release night, I was so spooked by Anhedönia’s distorted vocals that I turned it off and made myself wait until the morning.
In the light of day, the track is only slightly less frightening.
Beginning with this particular hymn speaks to a theme of the album–a longing to be closer to God. The iconic hymn is an ode to Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28:10-19, where he sees a ladder stretching to Heaven. Anhedönia latches on and adds her own lore with a concept she coined, “The Ring, the Great Dark, and Proximity to God,” which she has spoken about on her YouTube channel.
According to her theory, there are levels to our connection to God. Most of our lives exist in “the Great Dark.” To reach the “Divine Theatre,” where God resides, we must overcome our fear to reach a state of enlightenment or trigger an out-of-body experience through music, drugs, sex, or other means.
Anhedönia posits that certain music, frequencies, and layered sounds can “pull” us into this enlightened state. Powerful songs can act as a conduit from our souls to where God resides. She has referenced “Cosmic Love” by Florence + the Machine as an example.
In her video about the concept, Anhedönia diagrams the various instruments and harmonies used in one of her songs drawn around a circle called “The Ring.” This is how Anhedonia visualizes music. It is inferred from her explanation that the ring on the album cover is a direct link to her concept.
This important context brings us to track 6 of the album, “Pulldrone.” The song title references the pull of certain sounds (like a drone) that usher us into the “Divine Theater” with God.
“Pulldrone” is a poem listing Anhedönia’s 12 Stages of Simulacrum. It is accompanied by the occasional ring of a gong and a persistent groaning that sounds almost like a vacuum cleaner. The performance hearkens to ASMR Reiki experiences that sweep participants into a meditative trance.
These 12 Stages blend Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” and Anhedönia’s personal philosophy. Baudrillard was concerned with the relationship between what is and isn’t real.
The stages include apathy, disruption, curiosity, assimilation, aggrandization, delineation, perversion, resentment, separation, degradation, annihilation and desolation. In “Pulldrone,” Anhedönia describes the 12 moments leading to this euphoric enlightenment with God and how it feels to come down from that high:
“I want to know what God knows, and I want to be with Him / Sent over the edge, I sigh / Flush against the Veil, I sing”
Anhedönia brings listeners into her aching to transcend the boundaries of our human state to become closer to God. By the time the album reaches the “perversion” and “resentment” stage, we feel frustrated at the limitations of being human and fall into a state of darkness (coined “the Hole” in Anhedonia’s diagram).
The 15-minute song takes listeners on a roundtrip journey. From the “Great Dark,” we transcend to God into the otherworldly “Divine Theatre.” We then grapple with the devastation of being separated from God in the desperate and isolated place called “The Hole.”
In ” The Great Dark, ” we are brought to the highest of highs and then to the lowest of lows, and we must dig our way back to where we started.
No matter what we do, we will not know what it is like to be in the presence of God while we are on Earth. We can only guess, and those more determined than me will use the assistance of drugs or other means to try to replicate the feeling. But Baudrillard’s simulacrum tells us this replication will never compare to the real thing.
In addition to spirituality, Anhedönia also leans heavily into sexual themes.
On her official Tumblr page, Anhedönia confirmed that “Perverts” is a very erotic album. This is no secret, considering the album title. She is known to casually talk about pornography and share not-so-subtle images implying masturbation.
Track five, “Onanist,” is named after Onan, Judah’s second son, who is instructed to sleep with his brother’s wife so she would become pregnant. But, as explicitly stated in Genesis 38:8-10, Onan rebels against this order: “But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.”
The Southern Baptist within many of us may make us clutch our pearls at the topic of sex, but Anhedönia reminds us (once again) that religious spaces are full of “perverted” and corrupt individuals.
We may think “holiness” and “horniness” are opposites, but sexual desire is a God-given design feature that has its purpose in life for most human beings.
”Purity culture” has been an effective strategy for shaming people (mostly women) for experiencing or acting on certain feelings. Thankfully, many people are now more aware of the harms associated with this movement.
But there should be a balance. “Perverts” swings between two extremes.
While the album is bold and direct about its sexual themes, it also warns of the dangers of self-gratification. In track two, “Punish,” Anhedonia sings:
“Whatever’s wrong with me / I will take to bed / I give in so easy / Nature chews on me / Little death like lead / Poisonous and heavy”
“Little death” comes from the French term La petite mort and is a euphemism for orgasm. Each fall into temptation can push us closer to our own destruction. The line, “Nature chews on me,” is used in two tracks, indicating special importance. Even though we are created to experience sexual desire, pleasure can poison us if we are overexposed or addicted to it.
There are many meanings to be discovered in “Perverts,” but the layered and ambient sounds stand out. Anhedönia has a knack for orchestrating immersive productions.
After the success of “Preacher’s Daughter” on TikTok, many fans anxiously anticipated this new project, thinking it would be a sequel to Ethel Cain’s tragic story. Those who are surprised or disappointed are valid in feeling that way, but the signs have been there for a while that this is where the new album was heading.
Listening to Ethel Cain (Anhedönia) has made me appreciate genres of music I don’t usually pay attention to, and it has driven me to open my mind to new concepts.
In a doom-scrolling world where attention spans are practically non-existent and Top 40 hits are two minutes long, Ethel Cain’s “Perverts” is a practice of patience. But it is a worthwhile musical journey if you are open-minded enough to take it.
Creative coordinator for publishing and marketing at Good Faith Media. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Missouri Southern State University and her Associate of Arts degree from Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Missouri. Chisholm was an Ernest C. Hynds Jr. intern with GFM for the summer of 2021.
