Oh, boy. Hi, everyone. Crackthony Backtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Ethel Cain album, Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You.

Here we have the newest full-length LP from singer and songwriter Ms. Hayden Silas Anhedonia, aka, or rather releasing music through her beloved project, Ethel Cain. This is the long-awaited proper follow-up album to her breakout record, Preacher's Daughter, that took the sad girl sector of the music industry by storm around when it dropped, not only because of the record's heavy dreamy production and moody songwriting, but also the storytelling element of the album, too.

Because in the wake of this album dropping, there are just loads and loads of fans who have become enthralled with its dark and troubling narrative. In the macro picture, it is very much a story of dangerous patterns, of generational trauma, as well as one's drive to escape their surroundings, heading to some pretty terrible places. And on a micro level, this is all told through some pretty extreme themes around murder, cannibalism, and grooming.

Now, personally, it's an album that I thought was fine, really just okay, not quite as mind-blowing as some had made it out to be, as I found the music to be bland and a little derivative when comparing it to other artists out there in the alt-pop field at the time, if you want to call it that. But I still heard a lot of potential in what Hayden was doing on this project, and I was looking forward to see what she would do next.

I actually ended up having my mind blown by her following project, but not in the way I expected it to be. Because Hayden's 2025 EP, Perverts, I loved when it came out, and is pretty much on track to be my EP of this year. I mean, it's pretty much a lock at this point. But as much as I loved this thing here, it did prove to be a very polarizing project project among her fan base, even though Hayden made it very clear from the outset that Perverts was going to be very different stylistically from Preacher's Daughter.

And that it was, because this EP is, in fact, a 90-minute drone and dark ambient record that, honestly, I thought was pretty incredible for the style, because the atmospheres and textures throughout this EP are unnerving and disturbing, to say the least. And thematically, many of these tracks explored a lot of the same ideas that Preacher's Daughter did, but in a fashion that was more abstract and intense, less cinematic and less storybook.

Now, again, there were a lot of Ethel Can fans that didn't really care for what Hayden was offering here, which is understandable because nowhere on this EP are you going to find the pop appeal of a track like "American Teenager". But the negative reactions to Perverts is something I don't think Hayden was sweating too much, because since blowing up, she has been very public about her reservations around fame itself and what mainstream success she has attained thus far seems to have been mostly unplanned. She has shown very little interest in trying to maintain competitive monthly listener numbers or a perfectly crafted public image. I mean, we are talking about someone here who publicly called for the death of more CEOs and making them fear for their lives to enact change. This is also someone who has flexed firearms in images on the internet and made a vlog about her favorite types of gay porn.

So, yeah, Ethel Cain clearly doesn't want to be average pop star. And this new LP here just feels like further confirmation of that. Though I will say, Willoughby Tucker is not a super experimental project. This does feel like a return to form for those who are expecting something more on the level of a Preacher's Daughter.

And yeah, this record is essentially the spiritual successor of that, not just musically, but narratively, too, because its lyrics are supposed to dive more deeply into the backstory of a key character from Preacher's Daughter: Willoughby Tucker. But does so in a prequel sense.

Now, again, while I am saying here that this record is much more akin to Preacher's Daughter than Perverts was, the tracklist still lacks anything that, to my ear, sounds like a breakthrough single of any kind. Pretty much every track on this project, in fact, sees Hayden diving further into her slowcore influences as the entirety of this album has pretty much the pacing of a dirge. Much of the production has a dreamy Americana twist to it, too.

And while I don't think there's anything on this record that is entirely new in concept for Hayden, there's still a newfound maturity in some of the layers and textures that she's working with, because no doubt some of the dronier and more meditative ideas and passages on here were ideas that were certainly tinkered with in a more extreme way on Perverts prior, especially in the case of cuts in this tracklist that essentially feel like interlude passages, be it "Willoughby's Theme", which pretty much runs like a very thunderous, layered, soaring piece of post-rock, like what you'd get out of a Godspeed, You! Black Emperor record. You also have "Willoughby's Interlude", which is a slower burn at seven minutes and change.

Being able to pull off music this entrancing at this level is certainly a move I can appreciate because it does make Willoughby a bit more immersive than Preacher's Daughter by comparison, even on core tracks that are a bit more direct in nature like "Fuck Me Eyes". Between all the dramatic character descriptions in the lyrics and the atmospheric synthesizers, this track definitely has an '80s appeal to it, and it hits some really immense instrumental peaks around the midpoint and final leg, too.

I also love "Dust Bowl", which kicks off with the slow-mo, sad country guitars that remind me of some early Modest Mouse tracks, but it gradually develops into something that is much more depressive and entrancing by comparison. Hayden's vocals on the track feature this really incredible slow vibrato. Meanwhile, the storytelling on the track delivers more helpings of familiar themes around generational trauma and tragic love.

I also get a lot out of the track "Knock at the Door", too. Even if much of its foundation feels like I'm listening to an iPhone-recorded acoustic demo, that's subtly and gradually built upon with all of these droney layers.

The final moments on this record overall are okay. They range.

"Radio Towers", as an interlude, I can take or leave. But the 10-minute "Tempest" brings a wall of guitars and vocals that are like at Chelsea Wolfe Abyss levels of immersion, but without the same doom metal flair. But still, even without that, Hayden hits really some of the biggest and most crushing peaks on the entire record here, and gives us a very stark, abrupt ending that gives this record a strong sense of finality.

Now, following this, I feel like we could have been hit with a brief ballad or a credits roll moment of some sort. But instead, we have Ethel Cain doubling down with the longest track on the entire record, "Waco, Texas", which is 15 minutes in length. I do like the tune. The melody is solid. The chords also bring a feeling of brightness that is lacking throughout much of the rest of the album. There are a lot of clearly heart-wrenching moments in the lyrics of this track, too, that I'm sure hardcore Cain fans are going to eat right up:

"I've been picking names for our children
You've been wondering how you're going to feed them
Love is not enough in this world
But I still believe in Nebraska dreaming
Because I'd rather die than be anything but your girl
I never meant to hurt you, but somehow I knew I would."

Again, there's a lot to like about this track in terms of the instrumental layers, and again, the melodies that it brings forward as well as how it closes up the narrative of the album and sets things up for what is to come down the road on Preacher's Daughter. But I feel like this track could have been so much more impactful with a fraction of the run time. There's nothing about the build or the structure or the sequencing of this track that dictates that it needs to be 15 minutes.

Still, with that being said, I did like Willoughby Tucker quite a bit overall. Hayden feels very comfortable in her sound on this LP in a way to where it just feels specific to her at this point. The vocals feel like a step up, the production feels like a step up. But there are some tracks and passages here and there that lead to the run time of this record feeling a bit excessive.

I do think there is maybe a bit too much sonic uniformity among all of these songs across its run time, too, which is making me feel about a decent to strong 7 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Ethel Cain. Forever.