REVIEW: Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You

perhaps love can mean something

73:35 // August 8th, 2025 // Daughters of Cain

In all honesty, I never really know where to start when talking or writing about anything Ethel Cain-related, let alone a new full length record. “I really like her music” and “Preacher’s Daughter was my AOTY in 2022” are true statements, but don’t convey much about the genuinely unique space Hayden Anhedönia occupies or the weight her music carries for me (and many others). There are so many disparate elements that are worth addressing, and all of them are at least somewhat relevant to understanding what Ethel Cain’s music can mean… but then again, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You is also “simply” a ten-track album that can be heard by pressing play on a digital button. Let’s meet somewhere in the middle?

On the story side of things, this record functions as a prequel to Preacher’s Daughter. Where that project detailed the despair and death of the character of Ethel Cain as an adult, Willoughby Tucker… focuses on her teenage years and all the other characters relevant to her life during this period, in particular the titular love interest Willoughby Tucker. On the, eh, emotional impact side of things, however, the artist’s music has always been about much more than packaging fiction in gorgeous and expansive songs. In essence, her primary strength is the ability to translate specific traumas into more universal sentiments, and capture their impact in unexpected but persistently mesmerising ways - from the haunting doom of “Ptolomaea” to the ambient indie pop of “Crush”. Simultaneously, Anhedönia’s position in the wider pop-adjacent landscape is worth addressing: she’s a trans artist from the deep south, self-producing ethereal anti-war music that occasionally ends up on Obama’s playlist (lol), and followed the success of Preacher’s Daughter’s narrative and sonic grandiosity by releasing a one-and-a-half hour long deeply inaccessible if hauntingly excellent drone “EP” titled Perverts (lmao).

Interestingly, Willoughby Tucker… shares more musical DNA with this delightfully strange drone project than with Preacher’s Daughter. For the most part, it is a slowcore record, emphasis on slow. As such, it simultaneously lacks the diversity of Ethel Cain’s first album, but feels more focused. The one outlier is the single “Fuck Me Eyes”, a song that feels delightfully and purposefully Kim Carnes, and embodies the sole moment where the record tries its hand at a larger-than-life hook. It sticks the landing - “Fuck Me Eyes” is an excellent pop song - but feels a tad isolated. Sandwiched between two instrumental cuts spanning a total of twelve minutes and the breezily oppressive folk of “Nettles”, there’s a loneliness to the song that both reinforces its themes and makes the remainder of the record feel much more glacial. The Ethel Cain project has always had a knack for interestingly placed instrumental tracks - look no further than the one-two punch of “Televangelism” and “August Underground” on Preacher’s Daughter or like… most of Perverts - but the positioning of “Willoughby’s Theme” and “Willoughby’s Interlude” here feel especially challenging. More than anything, the early placement of these cuts feel like a necessary reframing of how to experience and ultimately interpret Willoughby Tucker… as an album. This is not an immersive experience with grandiose moments, either sonically or narratively: this is an introverted project meant for close and careful listening, without the obvious signposts of climaxes and meltdowns to pull you back in.

However, there is an extraordinary amount of beauty to be found within Willoughby Tucker…’s quiet meandering. “Janie” opens the record on a slowcore high: its ambient guitars form the perfect backdrop to Anhedönia’s incredible voice: the repeated semi-chorus of “I will always love you” feels entirely meditative as the song explores the idea of losing a friend to a relationship, and ultimately loss on a larger scale. Elsewhere, “Dust Bowl” feels like the ultimate incarnation of the record’s gothic-tinged folk explorations. It perfectly captures the decidedly more down-to-earth approach: rather than dabbling in cannibalism and afterlife-based thought experiments, this album concerns itself with more explicitly “relatable” concepts and emotions. “Dust Bowl” comprises a meditation on anxieties in love, and uses the singer’s softly towering voice to transform ordinary phrases into hypnotising melodies. It’s a prime example of how Willoughby Tucker… manages to capture towering emotions within its relatively limited palette: at times, it feels like a truly unique rearrangement of the plainly ordinary.

The one moment outside of “Fuck Me Eyes” where the record takes a contextual risk is the penultimate “Tempest”. The ten-minutes-and-zero-seconds long song bleeds from eerie ambient swells to slowcore doom before imploding in a dizzying assault of synthesizers. It’s a haunting trip of a song, with Anhedönia’s voice functioning as the sole point of consistent recognition to guide you on the journey. Leaving the fate of Willoughby Tucker’s character somewhat unknown, the song subsequently makes way for “Waco, Texas”. The closer feels like an acknowledgement of the record’s naivety: it’s the realisation of love’s destructive capabilities spread out across fifteen minutes of peaceful music. As a curtain-closer, it feels somewhat underwhelming in spite of its length: however, as a bridge to the next chapter that already exists, it’s entirely fitting.

Above all, this duality is what will make or break Willoughby Tucker… for any given listener. On the one hand, it can be seen as somewhat underwhelming: while there are highs, there are significantly fewer deeply memorable moments than on Preacher’s Daughter, and lacks the diversity and gut-punch of songs like “Thoroughfare” and “Sun Bleached Flies”. On the other hand, it makes sense for this record to not be as all-encompassing: it is a prequel dealing with a contextually simpler time in Ethel Cain’s life. It shouldn’t be destructive; it should be meditative. Moreover, the album is likely to appeal to a different kind of listener. Willoughby Tucker… makes it fairly easy to tune out the story, and be enjoyed as a calming slowcore project. As with all things Ethel Cain, this album is many things. It is at once gorgeous, immersive, satisfying, and slightly underwhelming. All I know is that I am not particularly jealous of having to navigate putting out new music after the sheer devastation and near-perfection of Preacher’s Daughter, and I am incredibly grateful to be hearing Anhedönia singing about whatever she dreams up.

8.5/10