‘Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You' Review: Ethel Cain's Next Chapter

Wall Street Journal

06-08-2025

Some songwriters report on their own lives, some grapple with geopolitical issues, and some find meaning in quotidian third-person storytelling. Twenty-seven-year-old Hayden Anhedönia, who makes music under the name Ethel Cain, builds worlds. She self-released her first EP six years ago, but the scope of her ambition came into focus with the release of her 2022 debut album, 'Preacher's Daughter.' One could draw a connection between certain songs on the record and an act as familiar and conventional as Taylor Swift—'American Teenager' was a tightly constructed upbeat number with radio-ready hooks, delivered in the singer's soaring, windswept voice. But 'Preacher's Daughter' was a Southern Gothic epic with long songs and interlocking stories about doomed love, shattered families and small-town violence. It was a work designed to be taken whole, an album you inhabit.
'Preacher's Daughter' was the kind of lore-filled cultural object seemingly assembled for an obsessive cult, and Ms. Anhedönia acquired one rather quickly. Her personal story—she was raised in a conservative Southern Baptist family in and around Tallahassee, Fla., and came out as trans and changed her name when she turned 20—strongly informs her music, connecting with fans who feel like outsiders themselves. But her finely rendered songwriting transcends biographical details, and one needn't know anything about her backstory to appreciate it. Her second song-based album, 'Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You' (Daughters of Cain), out Friday, is an extension of its predecessor's storytelling universe that demonstrates Ms. Anhedönia's marked artistic growth.
This progression is evident from the opening 'Janie,' a drumless ballad that begins with a bass-heavy drone before an ethereal guitar and wisps of synth fall behind the singer's ghostly voice. The sonics are richer and her melodic confidence is more assured compared to her earlier records, which deepens the song's simple story of a relationship that has withered away.
Ms. Anhedönia is often compared to Lana Del Rey, particularly in her penchant for extended narratives and a David Lynch-like fondness for darkly surreal Americana. But unlike Ms. Del Rey, the younger artist produces her own music, writes songs on her own, and plays the majority of the instruments on her recordings. By controlling every aspect of her music including engineering and mixing, she finds just the right sonic backdrop for each narrative, and she intersperses songs and instrumentals. The second track, 'Willoughby's Theme,' which moves from quiet and spare piano to surges of electric guitar and drone, suggests she has a future scoring films, if she so desires.