Like Lana Del Rey’s goth sister, Ethel Cain eulogises seedy all-American glamour over doomy, expansive pop-rock sounds. Her debut album features breathless depictions of badly behaved men (“He’s never looked more beautiful on his Harley in the parking lot, breaking into the ATMs”), grotty but idealised romantic setups, road trips filled with motels, diners and pistols, and the cold glitz of a strip club.
Yet, as the title suggests, the album’s other preoccupation is religion. Cain’s father was a deacon, and as a teenager she was ostracised from the Southern Baptist church she grew up in after coming out as gay (she later realised she was transgender). On songs such as Family Tree, her tortured relationship with Christianity fuels the most powerful lyrics in an album jam-packed with haunting, densely layered imagery and knotty emotional heft.
Beneath Cain’s evocative, beautifully rendered portraits of dysfunction and pain, the music moves between Americana, industrial noise, 80s bombast, horror-electronica and cool but pretty straightforward pop (you could just about imagine Olivia Rodrigo coming out with something like the sultry anti-war American Teenager). As the album progresses, however, the pop sensibility loosens: Televangelism is an intermittently warped piano instrumental; Ptolemaea recalls Arca’s fractious, challenging sound. By the end it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this is a long record with flagging momentum. But it’s also impossible to ignore this intriguing debut’s promise. Preacher’s Daughter has lyrical richness and atmospheric potency to spare.
