Ethel Cain, the stage name for 26-year-old Hayden Silas Anhedönia, is a singer-songwriter and music producer who resonates with many Gen Z women, especially myself. She’s important to those of us at FSU and the surrounding Northern Florida areas, as she was born in Tallahassee and raised in Perry. She writes music about her religious trauma from her Southern Baptist routes and is a queer icon for a lot of us, being a trans woman herself. She is most known for her concept album Preacher’s Daughter and the song “American Teenager.”
Cain is a character created by Anhedönia, following a rather intricate and powerful story as outlined by her music. However, Cain is dead, and her storyline is over, so where do we go from here?
On Nov. 1, Cain released a single titled “Punish” and an accompanying music video. On Oct. 14, the day she revealed the release date of “Punish,” her upcoming album Perverts was also announced. It’s been two years since Cain released an album, so I ran to listen to her new song.
The song starts with the haunting sound of a swing scraping and creaking against the floor before a piano begins playing over the noise. Cain starts strong with the lyric, “Whatever’s wrong with me / I will take to bed.”
“Punish” is a slow listen but a captivating one at that. While it has fewer lyrics than we’d seen from the songs on Preacher’s Daughter, it makes up for it through the soundscape of constant creaking, creating strong mental images.
Cain mentions the concept of revenge and seems to reference a murder that was filmed on live television in 1984. The lyric, “He was a natural Plauché, saying ‘You won’t forget this,’” could be an allusion to the revenge murder of Jeffery Doucet by Leon Gary Plauche due to the kidnapping of his 11-year-old son.
The song constantly goes back to the idea of shame and the concept of being “punished” for love and lust. Once the lyric, “That I was an angel, but they made me leave,” hits, the song explodes in a searing guitar and suddenly becomes louder.
We don’t know much of the specifics of Perverts itself, as Cain’s been secretive about it up to this point, but we might have an idea about the concepts of the songs and how many there are.
Anhedönia is extremely active on her Tumblr and Instagram pages, and she posted a series of 12 images with accompanying captions: “I – Apathy,” “II – Disruption,” “III – Curiosity,” “IV – Assimilation,” “V – Aggrandization,” “VI – Delineation,” “VII – Perversion,” “VIII – Resentment,” “IX – Separation,” “X – Degradation,” “XI – Annihilation,” and “XII – Desolation.” This led fans to believe there’ll be 12 songs on the upcoming album.
Perverts is set to be released on Jan. 8, 2025, but as we wait, go listen to the rest of Cain’s discography if you haven’t yet! Preacher’s Daughter, especially, is an insanely beautiful piece of art and worth the listen.
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