Willoughby, the title character of this second album proper from Ethel Cain, first emerged on the sprawling ‘A House in Nebraska’ – a track featured on her 2022 debut ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, which explored a troubled time gone by in the twisted semi-autobiographical world of creator Hayden Anhedönia. The cut set the scene for Ethel’s colossal downfall: soon, her fictional offshoot would meet her demise at the hands of a possessed newfound lover, set to be cannibalised, rotted and lost in the afterlife. By the end of album one, Willoughby represents a volatile sense of innocence. Here, following this year’s doom-laden ‘Perverts’ (perhaps the musical accompaniment to Ethel’s time in hell), Willoughby comes to life in the prequel to ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, taking off the rose-tinted glasses of youth and painting an equally fraught picture of personal demise. Where ‘Preacher’s…’ saw Ethel running from her past, ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love you’ drags us back there kicking and screaming, a deeply sombre and immeasurably powerful account of lost innocence. Its formula is familiar: a complex mix of epic instrumentals and hushed vocals, peppered with unexpected crescendos (not least in ‘Fuck Me Eyes’ – a brilliant companion to breakthrough track ‘American Teenager’, complete with a tantalising return to ‘80s synths and warped nostalgia, albeit somewhat more downbeat). ‘A Knock At The Door’ embodies an element of childlike wonder in its playful vocals, which swirl downwards as the final two epic compositions surge. “Please go easy on me,” she implores on ‘Tempest’, before it erupts into a soft, soaring wall of noise, both relying on and lamenting her youth. At ten minutes in length, the track is an easy highlight in Hayden’s growing repertoire of musical sagas, with ‘Willoughby…’ culminating in the title character’s departure, breaking the final thread to reality and sanity in a wave of beautiful sadness, love, longing and loss. As Ethel stands broken, forlorn and alone, Hayden rises stronger as one of the very best in storytelling and atmosphere.
