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2022 studio album by Ethel Cain From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Preacher's Daughter is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter and record producer Ethel Cain. It was released on May 12, 2022, via her own independent record label Daughters of Cain, which serves as an imprint of publishing company Prescription Songs. The album was entirely produced by Cain, with assistance from Matthew Tomasi on two tracks.
| Preacher's Daughter | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | May 12, 2022 | |||
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| Length | 75:42 | |||
| Label | Daughters of Cain (via AWAL) | |||
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| Ethel Cain chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Preacher's Daughter | ||||
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Preacher's Daughter is a concept album that creates a narrative centered on fictional characters and inspired by the artist's personal life as the daughter of a deacon. It explores intense themes including family trauma and sexual violence. Sonically, it experiments with slowcore, Americana, folk, ethereal wave, goth-pop, and elements of several other genres. The album was preceded by the release of three singles between March and April 2022: "Gibson Girl", "Strangers", and "American Teenager".
Upon release, the album was met with acclaim from music critics for its production, cohesiveness, storytelling, and songwriting; many of them named it one of the best albums of the year. It has also gained a cult following. To promote Preacher's Daughter, Cain embarked on her first two concert tours, the Freezer Bride Tour in 2022 and the Blood Stained Blonde Tour in 2023, through North America, Europe, and Oceania.
Hayden Silas Anhedönia developed an interest in music at a young age as being involved in a church choir while her father was a deacon; it was her first exposure to music.[1] She began studying classical piano at age 8, and her early influences were a variety of Christian music. She left the church at the age of 16.[2] Two years later, after leaving her religious family home in Florida, she began her gender transition process and started writing her debut studio album.[3]
In 2017, she released dreamy bedroom pop demos of songs under different monikers.[4] As White Silas, she first published Gregorian chant-inspired singles and mixtapes to SoundCloud and Tumblr.[5] Two years later, she began her main project, Ethel Cain, with the EPs Carpet Bed and Golden Age.[6] She then signed to publishing company Prescription Songs, and created her own imprint Daughters of Cain.[2] After gaining prominence by releasing her third extended play under the moniker, Inbred (2021),[7] the singer announced the release of her debut album, Preacher's Daughter, on March 17, 2022.[8]
Preacher's Daughter was described variously by critics upon its release as a slowcore,[9] Americana,[10] folk,[11] ethereal,[12] and goth-pop[13] album with perceived influences from dark ambient,[9] heartland rock,[9] classic rock,[9] cock rock,[14] sludge,[14] gospel,[9] industrial,[13] noise,[13] horror-electronica,[13] country and drone.[15]
Writing for The Guardian, Shaad D'Souza described Preacher's Daughter's composition as:[16]
Touching on hazy ambient music, gothic country and doom metal, many of its songs stretch out to the 10-minute mark, with no choruses or discernible hooks. Its calling-card single, American Teenager, is a heartland rock anthem that feels indebted to Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, but most other songs, like the pulverising Gibson Girl or the glacially paced Thoroughfare, seem to exist at the intersection of Lana Del Rey, the ambient folk artist Grouper, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor at their most grinding.
It is a concept album that draws on the artist's personal life as the daughter of a deacon, but creates a narrative "centered around the character Ethel Cain, who runs away from home only to meet a gruesome end at the hands of a cannibalistic psychopath."[17] Drawing loose inspiration from her personal life, Anhedönia has stated that she was "possessed by the persona of Ethel Cain"[18] after experiencing hardships of her own - such as coming out as gay, trans, and leaving her church and family. The story is told over thirteen tracks, the first of which is introductory and features spoken word, as well as lines from track five, additionally adopting the name of that track. "Family Tree (Intro)" opens with a distorted recording of a Southern preacher, foreshadowing the religious themes to come, as well as ideas of intergenerational trauma and how the actions of your predecessors can affect your present life.[9] "American Teenager" is a heartland rock,[10] country rock,[19] and ambient pop[20] song led by synths and guitars that tells of teenage American nostalgia and conveys strong anti-gun sentiment.[9] "A House in Nebraska" is an eight-minute torch song[14] featuring "angelic melodies, layers of reverb twisting around each other with dizzying clarity"[21] and ends with an arena rock guitar solo.[9] "Western Nights" is a pop rock song[17] about "a woman and her Harley-riding boyfriend crossing state lines, on the run from their past and still bearing family traumas."[10] "Family Tree" blends sludge and outlaw country as Cain "reveals the deadly agency her persona wields" as she reckons with "a genealogy marked by violence on all fronts".[9] "Hard Times" is a bedroom pop song[14] wherein "Cain admits to fearing how badly she wants to emulate the fatherly authorities in her life who brought her harm".[9] "Thoroughfare" is a country-inspired epic that "replaces the intensity of electric guitars with swelling vocals, reverberating drums and a cathartic whimsy," ending with a tambourine and scat singing jam session.[9] "Gibson Girl" "achieves a delicate mix of sultry and haunting"[9] with its "American-gothic eroticism" that shows the faults of the American Dream,[21] ending with another stadium rock guitar solo.[22]
The album's climax "Ptolemaea" is an industrial[10] doom metal song[14] named after the ninth circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno that houses Ethel Cain's namesake. "Horrifying and awe-striking", Cain "holler[s] with horror and anguish just as the guitars plunge into disarray and the occasional blast beat appears." The preacher from the intro returns to speak distorted incantations for the Daughters of Cain and "their whore mothers".[9] After "Ptolemaea" comes two instrumental tracks, "August Underground" and "Televangelism". The former is a doom-ambient track with low-register guitars and siren vocalizations[9] that is "meant to represent Cain's attempted escape from, and ultimate death at the hands of, her murderous lover".[17] "Televangelism" is a piano-led piece drowned in reverb that, towards the end, becomes swallowed by tape hiss, highlighting the "artificiality" of televangelism and "allegorizing [Cain's] ascent to heaven.[9][17] "Sun Bleached Flies" is a country power ballad[14][9] that "wrestl[es] with the contradictions of organized religion"[17] Album closer "Strangers" is influenced by hair rock[23] and grunge that ends in "a swarm of energetic chaos",[21] with Cain now a "freezer bride" in her killer's basement and being cannibalised as she sends out one final message of love to her mother.[17]
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Alongside the album's announcement, on March 17, 2022, Cain revealed its track listing via social media.[24] She also released the lead single of the album, "Gibson Girl".[25] The following month, "Strangers" and "American Teenager", the second and third single respectively, were released, with the latter gaining an accompanying video published in July.[26][27]
To promote the album, Cain hosted album release shows in Los Angeles and New York City, on May 18 and May 25, 2022, respectively.[28][29] She also performed live on KEXP,[30] and at WNXP's Sonic Cathedral in Nashville, Tennessee.[31] As part of Vevo's DSCVR Artists To Watch 2023 series, the singer recorded live performances for the album tracks "A House in Nebraska" and "Thoroughfare".[32][33]
In June 2022, Cain confirmed via social media that she would be kicking off her first concert tour across the United States, titled the Freezer Bride Tour.[34] Weeks later, she announced several dates across Europe; in the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands and France.[34] She also embarked on the Blood Stained Blonde Tour in 2023.[35][36] It marked her Coachella Festival debut.[37] Cain also performed at various festivals such as Pitchfork Music Festival, Vivid Sydney, and Reading and Leeds Festivals, and was a supporting act for indie rock band Florence and the Machine's Dance Fever Tour,[38] American singer Caroline Polachek's Spiraling Tour,[39] and American indie supergroup Boygenius's The Tour.[40]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 8.2/10[41] |
| Metacritic | 82/100[42] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Beats Per Minute |   [17] |
| Clash | 9/10[21] |
| Crack | 9/10[14] |
| DIY | [22] |
| Gigwise |   [15] |
| The Guardian | [13] |
| The Line of Best Fit | 9/10[23] |
| Paste | [9] |
| Pitchfork | 6.4/10[10] |
| Sputnikmusic | [43] |
Preacher's Daughter received a score of 82 out of 100 based on eight reviews from media aggregate site Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim".[42] In a five-star review for DIY, Ben Tipple wrote that Cain "has an unparalleled power to drag you into her world" and called her "an autobiographical embodiment of escape, and of a fresh start".[22] Jessie Atkinson of Gigwise named Preacher's Daughter "an American epic" and that "Ethel Cain is only 24 and has already written something as striking and with as much potential for cultural impact".[15] Crack writer Emma Garland called Cain's voice "resplendent and seemingly infinite in register, and transforming this landslide of beauty and suffering into some of the most fearless songwriting in recent memory."[14]
Devon Chodzin of Paste, wrote that "where one may knock some of the power ballads for sameness, one might instead find consistency, an album grounded in the artist's inspirations and narrative mission that is, above all, tantalizing. It is hard not to crave more."[9] The Line of Best Fit contributor Paul Bridgewater called the album "thematically a reckoning of salvation and oppression, all played out across the battlefield of religion and love. It's an ambitious undertaking for a first album, but Cain's success largely comes down to embracing the universal language of pop as her mother tongue and keeping a deft hand over all aspects of her work, as both songwriter and producer." Clash writer Oshen Douglas McCormick called it "a heart-wrenching collection of songs that urges the listener to give themselves over to this album as much as Ethel Cain gives herself over to you."[21]
In May 2022, Preacher's Daughter was included on Pitchfork's list of best new albums.[44] In the following month, it was listed as one of the best albums of the year so far by Gorilla vs. Bear.[45] In July 2022, Paste named "American Teenager" the best song of the year so far, with contributor Jacqueline Codiga describing it as "a deeply felt portrait of a doomed, yet hopeful character" and writing that it "has the stadium-sized scale, relatability and ambition to become the biggest song in the entire country".[46] Rolling Stone included "American Teenager" on its list of the most inspirational LGBTQ songs of all time.[47]
| Publication | List | Rank | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crack Magazine | Best Albums of 2022 | 1 |
[48] |
| The Line of Best Fit | The Best Albums of 2022 Ranked | 1 |
[49] |
| Sputnikmusic | Staff's Top 50 Albums of 2022: 10 – 1 | 1 |
[50] |
| Dazed | The 20 Best Albums of 2022 | 2 |
[51] |
| Clash | Clash Albums Of The Year 2022 | 4 |
[52] |
| The Ringer | The 33 Best Albums of 2022 | 11 |
[53] |
| Paste | The Best Albums of 2022 | 12 |
[54] |
| Flood Magazine | The Best Albums of 2022 | 19 |
[55] |
| Slant Magazine | The 50 Best Albums of 2022 | 20 |
[56] |
| The Guardian | The 50 Best Albums of 2022 | 23 |
[57] |
| Billboard | Best Albums of 2022 | 46 |
[58] |
All tracks written and produced by Ethel Cain, except where noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Producer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Family Tree" (Intro) | 3:41 | ||
| 2. | "American Teenager" |
| 4:18 | |
| 3. | "A House in Nebraska" | 7:46 | ||
| 4. | "Western Nights" | 6:05 | ||
| 5. | "Family Tree" | 7:11 | ||
| 6. | "Hard Times" | 5:03 | ||
| 7. | "Thoroughfare" | 9:28 | ||
| 8. | "Gibson Girl" | 5:42 | ||
| 9. | "Ptolemaea" |
|
| 6:24 |
| 10. | "August Underground" |
|
| 3:40 |
| 11. | "Televangelism" | 3:03 | ||
| 12. | "Sun Bleached Flies" | 7:36 | ||
| 13. | "Strangers" | 5:44 | ||
| Total length: | 75:42 | |||
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