“To love me is to suffer me.“
Even if you’re feeling the collective nausea around the word ‘lore’, it’s difficult not to be compelled by the stories that swirl around Ethel Cain’s Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You. The album is a prequel to her smash hit record Preacher’s Daughter, and is the tale of a southern girl and her relationship with the titular character. She learns to fall in love and a complex relationship grows that is pinned on all sides by the harsh landscape of the south, and poverty, misogyny, and trauma of her life to date. It’s a tale as old as humankind, executed with the kind of creative vision that revives entire genres. This is a tremendous album that makes the mythos worth mythologising.
The album already has officially approved annotations that explain the intent of some of its lyrics on Genius. If these weren’t enough, the writer’s prolific commentary on her discography has hinted at and leaked demos of these songs for a long, long time. So many all-lowercase titbits have been served right alongside her ominous yet personable persona, inducing many into a para-social relationship. Amid all these details, the missing pieces feel ever more underlined. The internal world of the album is compelling because its struggles will hit close to home for so many listeners, but the true fate of Willoughby won’t be what keeps the fans up at night. To what extent are the story details autobiographical, and how does this all link into Hayden Anhedönia’s sexual, gender, and religious identity? In describing this record as ‘raw and too close to home’, it burns with honesty, as if the truth behind this tale would be just as painful to bear.
The pop, folk, and Americana elements of Preacher’s Daughter can now be observed disappearing in the rearview mirror. This is a conscious rejection by Anhedönia, proving that Perverts was not just an eighty-nine minute flash-in-the-pan. Drone and ambient music are here to stay at the core of the Ethel Cain sound. There are just a few hooks and a few discernable verse-chorus patterns, yet there’s no moment of Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You that is not accompanied by floating soundscapes. When it gets loud, entire choruses of warm drones billow, threatening to swallow up the whole band. Matthew Tomasi is the key individual that Anhedönia has thanked from a production standpoint. Tomasi previously assisted with “Ptolemaea” and “August Underground” on Preacher’s Daughter, so it’s no surprise that Anhedönia has chosen to work with him on more of her ambient, post and drone inclinations. This is also simply the kind of music that is healing for Anhedönia right now, and when you hear it, it is easy to imagine why that healing might be working.
Given how much of the run time has been dedicated to them, there will be much discussion of the record’s instrumentals, so let us begin there. “Willoughby’s Theme” is given pride of place as the second track, and is in fact Anhedönia’s favourite (‘beyond a shadow of a doubt’). The piano tenderly introduces the first moment where Tomasi‘s distorted guitars hit, coming in as a low gut punch and a soaring drone, completely sucking you into the album’s dusty world. Across the album these guitars are smoothed off, barely entering the mids, which are given over to Anhedönia’s ever fantastic voice.
After the album’s two busiest tracks, “Willoughby’s Interlude” swoops in to keep the listener grounded. Swells of distant piano resonate just above a steady bass line, building towards something entirely diffuse and beautiful. The climax elapses only when each individual drone has scattered beyond, leaving that bass to warp gradually into “Dust Bowl”. Similarly, “Radio Towers” takes its drowned Rhodes piano chords and detunes them to form the introduction of “Tempest”. These pieces are sublime, repeating the simple glory of the friendlier moments of Perverts, especially in the vein of “Etienne” and “Thatorchia”. “A Knock At The Door” is perhaps an honorary interlude, even though it has lyrics. The acoustic piece feels incidental and fully entwined with its neighbouring tracks, and the different approach to vocal production also pulls it into a unique space.
Anhedönia has not shied away from extended cuts on Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You. “Tempest” turns the slowcore influence all the way up to hit doomgaze, with each snare hit echoing endlessly through the track. A complete wall of sound waits for you at its end, where Anhedönia sings “forever”, forever. The following and final track “Waco, Texas” is even bigger, providing a soft landing in a sonic sense, but a troubled close for the characters and themes of the record. It spends its runtime formulating a standard structure, seen on earlier pieces like “A House In Nebraska”, taking the most scenic route possible as it does so. “Nettles” is the record’s well celebrated single, the closest we come to the country moments of Ethel Cain’s past, now rendered as a folk song whispered through dry undergrowth. Despite these runtimes, it all feels as light as a feather once it’s playing, and the only challenge for listeners is to find the right moment to digest it all in full. This might be Perverts’ easy listening sibling, but both records are challenging the listener to give every moment equal focus, and to find the intent of every element, be it the lyrics, timbre, or aesthetics.
If you are approaching this album in the hope of finding something more akin to “American Teenager”, as luck would have it, “Fuck Me Eyes” is here for you. Cinematic synths are the vehicle for the track, and it’s one of the few to leave the guitar aside. Yet, the particular glitter of the reverb keeps the track in the same mirage-world as the rest of the album. Even though it has a typical pop structure, the pyramid structure of a gentle beginning and softening aftermath are what give it shape in the mind. Unique to the album is the sublime moment where Anhedönia sends her voice to the sky (“I’ll never blame her for tryinga make it / But I’ll never be the kinda angel he would see”). On Preachers Daughter, most songs tried to scratch the same cloudy heights to the detriment of its re-playability as an entire piece. Instead, “Fuck Me Eyes” is one of very few climaxes on the album, and it’s all the better for it. Moments of “Tempest” and “Dust Bowl” approach it in terms of volume, with the latter providing the only other pop-like hook, in the form of a semi-vaporwaved RnB reverie. As if to flex the record’s slowcore credentials, there’s even a direct sampling of a Duster song on “Dust Bowl”. As these climactic moments become more sparing, the unique aspects of each one are further emphasised.
For many, this record won’t be the one they were hoping for, especially septics of the premise of Perverts. Preacher’s Daughter is highly celebrated and has an admirable range of genres in play, but this album demonstrates that Ethel Cain’s sound is better served by doubling down on fewer aspects at one time. These songs all have unique missions, executed with incredible talent, all contributing towards the same goal. Perhaps there’s a different record in the future where this project pivots back towards pop, but at least for the time being, the soundscapes at play here are clearly the food that Anhedönia’s soul needs.
But the real magic of Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You is not what it has to teach the pop world. In the ambient, slowcore, and post rock worlds, we have also been lacking albums like this: genuinely dynamic and patient records whose songs are willing to take genuinely different approaches towards a shared goal. We’d love to think the more DIY-facing genres are more willing to embrace a diverse structure, yet it simply doesn’t happen often enough. Furthermore, it’s very exciting for those of us who have dwelt down in these obscure rabbit holes to see them lit up by new audiences – and this should go both ways too. How often can we say that Red House Painters, Lana Del Rey, Holy Fawn, Florence + The Machine, This Will Destroy You, and Phoebe Bridgers may all be genuinely good stepping stones onwards? Here’s hoping that all those that flock to Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You will come away with more than just a contender for album of the year.
9.5/10
Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You released today through Daughters of Cain and can be ordered here.