Type: Album
Score: 5/10
Yes I know this is hard to read with no paragraph breaks but I don't know how to add them so just try your best. Just to be clear this is the first Ethel Cain project I've heard so I don't really have much to compare it with, I also was not aware that this was a drone album beforehand because I had my head in the sand or something so that came as a surprise. I found Punish brilliant so I was very excited for this to drop and I hate to say it but I left disappointed. I guess I shouldn't have gone in expecting the level of energy from the lead single throughout the entire album but the first song being glitched up radio sounds and wind noises for the first five minutes was not on my expectation bingo card. To be completely honest I'm not even sure I'd consider most of the title track to be a song at all and that's not a good thing. It was mysterious sure but it didn't really get me very interested nor did I have any idea what was going on. Perhaps I was meant to 'get' it after having finished the album but I didn't. I did like the last two or so minutes a lot more though, sounded like something was actually happening.
Punish as mentioned was brilliant, have had it on repeat since release and it's certainly the highlight of this project. The synth was wonderful and I love it through and through. It even managed to feel like its placement in the track list made sense which I was a little worried about when I was about halfway through the title track. Punish is also lyrically interesting despite me being unable to relate to the situation Ethel is speaking of. I'm sure the other tracks are well done lyrically too but Punish is the only one with lyrics right now and I'm a lazy bum who prefers to read lyrics off a page that someone else has written down.
I'm not quite sure about Houseofpsychoticwomn, it feels like a repeat of the title track in that instead of being a song its a repeating sound with Ethel whispering mind bending messages in my ears. The repeating sound made it sound like I was spinning or something and it was really annoying lowkey. Ethel said she loved me though so +1 points (ily too Ethel). The droning synth at the end was also pretty cool.
Vacillator felt like we were getting back on track, it's a slow nice nice listen that doesn't constitute psychological torture and Onanist was even better, it was ethereal, heavy and all round great. Stuff like it really helped me not have a stroke and die during this album though to be honest at some points it got a little staticy for my liking if that's the word. Not a big fan of the two minutes Ethel ASMR at the end of the track either though I'm sure 'it feels good' has some deep meaning, maybe something to do with the whole abuse throughline going on that I'm not smart enough to decipher.
Pulldrone was another spoken word section which if you haven't guessed by now I'm not a fan of. Not much to say, I wasn't listening too carefully so I didn't really know what was going on, ouroboros or something, I'm quite the reviewer I know. Tragically I hadn't liked the album enough up until that point to care too much. Then Ethel used a weedwacker that became bagpipes near the end for the rest of the song. The end.
Etienne was a nice instrumental track with random rambling from some guy who sounded like he was behind a pane of glass at the end. Not much to say about it. Thatorchia had some nice heavy synths like Punish did but never matched Punishes freak sadly :(, it was just synth and some vocalization. Amber Waves was a wonderful end to this album, slow and beautiful which I think are the two best attributes Ethel gives her songs in this album.
I saw some people commenting about how sad it was, I didn't really feel that. Saddest part about listening to this album is that I got Hypixel level 125 while listening to it. I clearly need to get out more. This album isn't bad, if it was I probably would have turned it off midway through, it certainly had something interesting going on, but I can't see myself returning to it and I wasn't a fan of the long ass drone tracks at all. Certainly didn't make me excited to check out more of Ethel in the future.