
Ethel Cain released her fourth album, “Perverts,” on Jan. 8. Cain started making music in 2017, and over her eight-year career, she has earned many loyal fans while gaining 2.7 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The album consists of nine songs with a runtime of one hour and 29 minutes. Most songs are just under 10 minutes in length. The album was interesting, and it is something that I have never listened to before.The length of the songs makes the songs more powerful, helping her build the song and make the listener feel something. It helped me to think about each song and actually listen.
Multiple songs on the album have little to no words at all, and even on the songs with vocals, Cain doesn’t sing until four to five minutes into the song. The last song on the album, “Amber Waves,” caught my eye more fitting into this category of not having as many words as you would expect.. This song was another long song, running for 11 minutes and 32 seconds, but I kind of enjoyed it. The vocals on the song don’t come in until two minutes in which creates a sense of suspense. However, there are more words than the average song on the album. The song starts off pretty slow, but it picks up about three minutes in, and it’s probably the best song on the album. The album was losing me towards the end, primarily because I found the second to last song on the album to be probably the strangest song on there, but once “Amber Waves” started playing, I was brought back in and started to enjoy it.
With how few vocals there were throughout the album, thes one exception was the second song on the album, “Punish.” In the song, Cain begins to sing early on and maintains those vocals which is refreshing, as it contrasts the rest of the album. It helped me enjoy the song all the way through. The song is also the shortest on the album, making it the easiest one to listen to. With how unique this album was, “Punish” was the closest to other songs I’ve heard before.
One song I didn’t like very much was titled “Thatorchia.” I didn’t enjoy this song because I found it weird and almost creepy. The song from start to finish was just strange—with the beginning of the song being a creepy siren for nearly two and a half minutes. As the song progressed, it started to become more normal, but then it finished even stranger than the start, with a very loud static sound and more strange noises in the background. The song is the second to last song on the album, and it made me lose interest. I didn’t want to listen to it anymore, and I don’t think I know anybody that would feel differently about it.
Another song I didn’t enjoy was the third song on the album titled “Houseofpsychotiwomn.” This is 13 minutes of the strangest song I’ve heard in my entire life, to the point where I almost felt uncomfortable. The song includes no vocals, other than an occasional whisper that’s almost too quiet to hear, and it just adds an eeriness to the song. This piece is definitely my least favorite song on the album and I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.
Overall this album was ok. It was interesting because I have never heard anything like it before. The length of songs isn’t a huge deal breaker for me, but I would have liked the songs to be shorter. There were definitely some solid songs on the album, but I just couldn’t get over how strange a couple of the songs were. I will, most likely, never listen to this album again, but I would recommend it if you are into this kind of music or want to hear something unique.
“Perverts:” ★★★☆☆