Album Review: Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You by Ethel Cain

Love is not enough in this world, but I still believe in Nebraska dreaming Ethel Cain's debut LP Preacher's Daughter was the definition of groundbreaking music. The way Hayden Anhedonia wove together breathtaking dream pop, elegant indie-folk, and spacious ambience with dark, sinister storytelling - all through the lens of a transgender woman - resulted in a landmark moment for music in the 2020s. For a snapshot of just how artistically diverse Preacher's Daughter was, all you'd need to do is play 'American Teenager' 'A House In Nebraska', and 'Ptolemaea' consecutively.

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By contrast, we have no clue where Hayden Anhedönia, the breakout indie sensation behind Ethel Cain, is headed. A few years ago, she became an instant critical darling and out-of-place main pop girl after the release of her Southern Gothic concept album Preacher's Daughter hit the Billboard charts, TikTok and music nerd spheres simultaneously. Since the release of that album - written about a character who endures familial abuse in rural, religious America, runs away, and falls into the arms of men who hurt and eventually kill her - she's attracted controversy from Fox News (for her comments about killing CEOs), the broader public (over a rediscovered offensive Twitter account), and from her own fans (who didn't expect her to start 2025 by releasing a ninety-minute drone EP, Perverts).

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This long-awaited Ethel Cain "B-sides" record feels not only like a fully formed album in its own right but also stands as testament to the artist's talent for world building, film score-ready soundscapes, and the unashamed conveyance of sheer emotional weight. For evidence of the latter, you don't need to look much further than the first lines of album opener, "Janie"--"Hold me/smell of mildew/I wanna die/in this room. " Think of the saddest movie you've ever watched, and the colossal instrumental "Willoughby's Theme" wouldn't sound out of place on its soundtrack.

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A prequel to debut album Preacher's Daughter, Ethel Cain's sophomore record creates an ethereal collection of memories, which paint the picture of her first love. Janie sets a sombre and retrospective tone. Young and stuck in her hometown, Cain looks back on the crushing experience of an old love finding the next person to hold onto. The universe seems miniscule because your hometown is this inescapable place and she uses a chunky electric chord progression to express that feeling, resembling the end of the world.

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Willoughby, the title character of this second album proper from Ethel Cain, first emerged on the sprawling 'A House in Nebraska' - a track featured on her 2022 debut 'Preacher's Daughter', which explored a troubled time gone by in the twisted semi-autobiographical world of creator Hayden Anhedönia. The cut set the scene for Ethel's colossal downfall: soon, her fictional offshoot would meet her demise at the hands of a possessed newfound lover, set to be cannibalised, rotted and lost in the afterlife. By the end of album one, Willoughby represents a volatile sense of innocence.

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Ethel Cain is the most exciting artist on the planet right now. Her own particular brand of gothic americana is filtered through generations of voices, from Springsteen to Lynch, Basquiat to Woolf. However, it also represents something unique, bold, and fresh. A transgender woman, Cain – real name Hayden Anhedönia – was raised in a devout Southern Baptist community, a kind of upbringing where your road to adulthood is paved with trauma, instead of having it dotted about in manageable chunks.

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Illinois slowcore band Good Night & Good Morning were criminally underrated during their original lifespan. Their one full length LP Narrowing Type, an enveloping mix of hibernal slowcore, ambient guitar squall and twinkling vibraphone, was released in 2011 without much fanfare - completely at odds with the neon shimmer of the mainstream indie music of the period - and the group burnt out, vanished, disappeared without as much as a goodbye. However, in the decade following Narrowing Type's release, it has grown in stature.

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Through the character and pseudonym of Ethel Cain, singer-songwriter Hayden Anhedönia has explored the depths of human trauma and despair, mostly recently on her experimental horrorcore drone EP Perverts. While there's plenty of struggle and despondence on Cain's second studio album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You--a prequel to 2022's Preacher's Daughter--she also tentatively explores something new: bliss. With its pulsing synths, preponderance of f-bombs, and lyrics that blur the lines between hate and envy, "Fuck Me Eyes" feels like Kim Carnes's "Bette Davis Eyes" by way of Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me.

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