On Perverts, Ethel Cain is lost in the meticulous crafting of her own horror noise

“If you love me, keep it to yourself,” Ethel Cain croons on Perverts. It’s a line that reflects the discomfort the artist born Hayden Anhedonia felt after the seductively melodic, Southern Gothic swell of her 2022 debut, Preacher’s Daughter, lifted her from introverted obscurity and washed her up, exposed, under the spotlights of alt-pop stardom.

Raised in a Southern Baptist household in Florida, coming out as gay at 12, leaving the church at 16 and coming out as a transgender woman four years later, Cain’s narrative proved a magnet to queer people, emo kids and outsiders everywhere. She’s a deft storyteller, creating a darker arc for her artistic alter-ego, channelling true crime into the sweltering cannibalism-climaxing tale of Preacher’s Daughter.

But while the anthemic snark of single “American Teenager” made it the indie pop hit of the year, the resulting celebrity caused anxiety that led to the artist passing out on stage at the Sydney Opera House in June 2023. In later interviews, she also noted that while she had enjoyed engaging online with fans and with the memes mocking her work, screaming live audiences messed with the sounds she had spent years very carefully engineering in her back bedroom.

Consequently, the spooky, experimental, 90-minute-long Perverts offers nothing in the way of stadium-singalong pop. Listening to it feels more like being trapped in a serial killer’s underground network of post-industrial tunnels. Maybe you’ve been lured in by the elegant, echoey advance single, “Punish”, a piano ballad reminiscent of late-Nineties Sarah McLachlan on which she moans sweetly of desire and shame and “poisonous” little deaths.

Through this ivy-clad portal lies drone. Distortion. Drafts. Hissing. Crackling. Clanging. Synths buzzing like flies. Distant footsteps and the creak of uncoiled hinges. Snatches of melody and sung sections, then whispered samples and confessions. On the title track, Cain sings the 19th-century hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee” – reputedly the last song played by the band on the deck of the Titanic – with deep sorrow and an icy sliver of menace and doom. On “Vacillator” (the only track with drums) she sings: “I like that sound you make/ When you’re clawing at the edge and without escape/ Do you like that, baby?/ I could make you cum 20 times a day/ Close the door, let me in…”

Your anxious ear is pressed against the keyhole throughout: where are you (on “Onanist” she mentions a wood)? What is Cain trying to tell you? Does she love you (she whispers that she does on “Housofpsychoticwomn”) or is she laughing at you as she twiddles with the nobs of her psychological torture desk? During some of the longer tracks, you might suspect she’s forgotten about you entirely, lost in the meticulous crafting of her own horror noise. Throughout it all drift scattered tunes and moments of transformative beauty.

Although Cain is clearly pushing away one type of fan, this album is destined to bind others more closely to her. While I can’t work out when I’d choose to listen to it again, Perverts is distressingly exquisite. Repeated plays guarantee sonic Stockholm syndrome.