Ethel Cain’s Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You feels like stepping into a dream you’re not sure you want to wake up from. Hayden Silas Anhedönia, under her Ethel Cain alter ego, has built a prequel to Preacher’s Daughter that’s haunting, cinematic, and impossible to shake. It’s Southern Gothic on a grand scale—an album about doomed love, obsession, and memory that turns heartbreak into poetry.

From the very first notes, you’re dropped into Cain’s world of slowcore haze and shoegaze fog. Janie opens the record like a ghost at the door: “She was my girl first / I know you love her / But she was my girl first.” It’s devastating and obsessive, and the way it lingers sets the tone for everything that follows.

The magic here is how Cain blends the personal with the mythic. A love triangle full of jealousy and inevitability unfolds in waves, and Nettles might be the most heartbreaking moment of all. It plays like a hospital-room confession — life fading, futures collapsing — and it’s one of those songs that makes you sit completely still just to absorb it.

Sonically, the album swirls with lo-fi drones, reverb-heavy guitars, and percussion that seems to echo forever. But then Cain breaks the mood with Fuck Me Eyes, a shot of dazzling ‘80s synth-pop that’s equal parts gorgeous, dramatic, and gutting. It’s the kind of pivot that makes you feel the story in your chest, not just your ears.

The interludes, like Willoughby’s Theme, aren’t filler — they expand the mood, layering the dizzy rush of first love into the soundscape. Cain’s voice drifts through these songs like a ghost, pulling you deeper into her world. Everything feels bigger and more spacious the longer you sit with it, and the album keeps rewarding that surrender.

At the center is Waco, Texas, a 15-minute epic that ties everything together. It builds and crashes like a storm, then dissolves into silence, leaving you suspended in its aftermath. The line “Love is not enough in this world / But I still believe in Nebraska dreaming” is pure Cain — romance and ruin locked in perfect tension — and it stays with you long after the album ends.

As a prequel, this record adds depth to Preacher’s Daughter, but it also stands tall on its own. Cain revisits themes of religious trauma, obsession, and crumbling Americana with sharper focus and even more empathy. She doesn’t just write songs—she builds worlds.

Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You isn’t just an album, it’s an experience. It’s devastating, gorgeous, and endlessly immersive. Cain has made something both intimate and mythic, a story you live inside while it plays. More than a singer or songwriter, she proves again that she’s a master storyteller, and this record feels like her most daring chapter yet.

Rating: 9/10

By: Sam Buckel

September 10, 2025