Golden Age EP by Ethel Cain | Album Review
On her debut EP, Ethel Cain hones her God-fearing tragic persona.
By now, many of us are familiar with Hayden Silas Anhedönia’s alternate persona Ethel Cain through her dark, slow alt-pop debut album Preacher’s Daughter.
I wanted to take a look back to the beginning of her work under the moniker with 2019’s debut EP Golden Age. Before finding her creative home with the character of Ethel, Hayden worked shortly under the name White Silas releasing several singles in 2018. Her roots in the church and her dreams of the American Southwest would shape the character we know now as Ethel Cain. Hayden told Underground Underdog the following about what channeled into the creation of this debut project:
“I split Golden Age up into two separate aspects: sonic and emotional. Emotionally, Golden Age started with my first real encounter with love. I’ve always felt very alone and secluded in my life but at the very start of 2019 I fell in love completely by accident and it was very much an emotional awakening for me. I was feeling things I’d never felt before and it was all very intense and new and terrifying. I wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it, so I ended up making a mess of the situation in a way, and it wound up being the most emotionally turbulent year of my life. Golden Age wound up just being the product of my hopes and fears and pleasures and pains all regarding that love. Some of it is from experience, some projecting, some wishing. Sonically, I just wanted to capture the drugged-out haze I spent the entire hot Florida summer drifting through. I wanted the entire EP to just feel like a washed-out, sweaty, and romantic fever dream.”
I absolutely adored Preacher’s Daughter and looked forward to hearing where Anhedönia started.
Hayden opens the project on the dreamy sounds of “Sunday Morning.” The track glows like sunlight through the branches of trees. You get ambient sounds of birds mixed with the buzz of electric guitar, glittery acoustic guitar, a subtle hip-hop beat, and what becomes Anhedönia’s trademark delayed languorous vocals.
As soft as the music sounds, the story weaved through here is dark. Cain appears to be locked in a relationship that toes the line between abusive and submissive/dominant, “Hands like barbed wire/ Wrapped around my throat, making me cry like I told you / I wanted in the car, on the long drive home/ Baby, we’re alone now/ Sunday morning, everything hurts except for you.”
“Casings” has a wilted quality to it that works well. I feel the hip-hop beat doesn’t quite work with the more ambient dragging nature of the song. While this could be a bit dull, it adds a stuck quality that really drives home how lost Ethel feels. She questions all the reasons why her boyfriend left her and how he can move on, “Do you not love me like you did/ When you told me that it’s fine?/ That I’ve been hurt, cause you’ve been too?/ And that kind of pain, you don’t mind?” I think the beat keeps me from pushing this song into really good territory. I love her writing, but I feel this one is a little disjointed.
I am really taken by the atmosphere of “Lilies.” The song has a sort of Eastern influence that takes its dreamy quality to another level. Hayden also brings in California dream-pop artist Mercy Necromancy to further add a shimmering quality to this limbo. This mysterious vibe plays well to Ethel’s pining over this man, “You’re like an angel/ I can’t come close to you/ You know my weakness/ But you don’t know what I’d do.” The end of the chorus, “You’re such an angel/ And I’m gonna hurt you/ I know I’m gonna lose you/ But God, don’t want to,” has so much pain to it. I really love how all of this comes together both sonically and lyrically.
Anhedönia crafts quite the harrowing tale on “Head in the Wall.” I absolutely love the warmth that the electric guitar adds to the song. Hayden paints a vivid image of a woman in emotional and mental squalor after the end of this relationship.
Hayden told Pitchfork the following about how she came up with the song:
“My head was definitely in the wall when I made it. I had been out of a really dark period of my life for about a year and a half, and all at once I started to process a lot of different stuff: from my childhood, from my teenage years, from the couple of years on my own as an adult. […] And I’d been listening to this song by Title Fight, ‘Head in the Ceiling Fan,’ which has the most beautiful guitar I’ve ever heard. It just struck me to my core. […] So I looped the guitar at the beginning of it and literally wrote “Head in the Wall” in 10 minutes on my bedroom floor.”
She’s despondent and resorts to hurting herself to quell the pain. She also highlights his abusive history that has broken her, “I hold my head underwater just to drown out the noise/ It’s always my fault, girls will be bitches and boys will be boys/ I know I don’t need you, but I’m terrified of letting you go/ Even after all the times you fucked the shit out of me while I was crying ‘No.’” We also get our first taste of the religious scars that will spread into her other projects moving forward. It’s harsh but very effective in how she presents the effects of low income, drug use, and crime on her life.
Hayden continues the themes of abusive love on “Knuckle Velvet.” I love the dark, gritty quality the electric guitar gives this song. Anhedönia worked with Floridian artist Yah Wav on the production of this song. There’s a thick rime of resentment that Ethel’s character espouses about her continued abuse, “Just another day and you’ll still tell me you’re healing/ See it on your face, you won’t ever change in your ways/ Shed your knuckle velvet, torn on my teeth/ When you’re torn apart, you’ll destroy me again.” This is the most alternative rock-oriented song I’ve heard from Hayden. The vivid way she can draw up the story of a beaten housewife at her wit's end is incredible. It’s another favorite of mine from this project.
The final song and title track, “Golden Age,” ends on a grander dreamy tone. My only complaint about the song is the reverb on Hayden’s vocals which gives an almost aquatic tone to her sound. It’s a much brighter note to end on than the previous songs. While Ethel waxes on all the reasons she can’t find love that satisfies her, she forges forward in her pursuit of happiness. The song’s bridge gives a welcomed sense of hope for Ethel’s future, “I don’t have to wait to be happy when I’m old/ And that one of these days, I’ll find a way/ To fight the waves, embrace the pain/ And paint the ages a hundred shades of gold.” I can hear the start of western inspired dream pop that will be further honed in future projects.
I am always pleased to listen to any of Ethel’s work. It is clear her creative home around this tragic god-fearing, yet defiant character is where her creative passion lies. There is so much depth to the often bleak and harsh tales of love and heartbreak that wind throughout this EP.
I can hear the influence acts like Mazzy Star have on her sound. My only negative with this project comes with some of the beats that come in. While I think the hip-hop beat works better with “Sunday Morning,” I don’t think it mixes well with “Casings.” I can tell Hayden is getting her footing on what sound she’s going for and how she wants to produce it. If you like dreamy alt-pop with a dark twist, I think you’ll really like this EP. My overall thoughts on the Golden Age EP:
Loved it: “Lilies” (feat. Mercy Necromancy), “Head in the Wall,” & “Knuckle Velvet” (feat. Yah Wav)
Liked it: “Sunday Morning,” “Casings,” & “Golden Age.”
Disliked it: None
My overall rating: 7.5 out of 10.
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