Hayden Anhedönia — Ethel Cain to the public — is no stranger to telling the story she wants to tell on her own terms. Anhedönia’s debut album, 2022’s “Preacher’s Daughter,” helped catapult the alternative Americana vocalist to critical acclaim and a cult following. With the release of “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You,” Cain shows off a shift in her musical keystone without losing sight of where she shines brightest.
“Preacher’s Daughter” introduced listeners to the world of Ethel Cain — a persona through which Anhedönia explores themes of religion, trauma and idealism — and allowed Anhedönia to channel herself through Cain’s fictionalized experiences. Notably, Cain suffered abuse from her father, a Southern Baptist preacher, before fleeing her small Nebraska hometown, falling in love and ultimately being cannibalized by her lover-turned-pimp-and-murderer.
With “Willoughby Tucker,” a prequel to the events of “Preacher’s Daughter,” Anhedönia shifts direction. Willoughby Tucker, a character first introduced in the song “A House in Nebraska” from “Preacher’s Daughter,” was Cain’s first lover. This record focuses on Cain and Tucker’s relationship and its eventual collapse, integrating some musical influences from Anhedönia’s January 2025 experimental drone record, “Perverts.” Despite a handful of artistic choices that fall flat, Anhedönia ultimately feeds the fire of her flocking cult following.
The opening track “Janie” hints at how tumultuous Cain and Tucker’s relationship will eventually become. When Janie, Cain’s best friend, enters a relationship, Cain fears she has lost her best friend and insists they end their friendship outright to avoid further pain. Lines like “Easy to hate, easy to blame / Shoot me down / Come on, hurt me” embody Cain’s self-destructive tendencies built up after years of abuse and neglect; her friendship with Janie foreshadows how these defenses will soon come back to bite.
Following the instrumental “Willoughby’s Theme,” Anhedönia treats listeners with the album’s first of two singles, “Fuck Me Eyes.” The track paints the picture of Holly Reddick, a classmate of Cain’s, whose life differs vastly from day to night: “She goes to church … straight from the clubs.” Cain incessantly compares herself to her classmate — a siren to the boys in their class — emphasizing her fear that Tucker will leave her for that “kind of angel.”
“Nettles,” the second single, represents a thematic microcosm of the record. The eight-minute track pulls listeners into Cain’s world, marred by the anxieties of losing Tucker. United by their trauma in “a race to grow up,” Cain and Tucker’s relationship intertwines their souls beyond time; thoughts of all the possible ways in which she loses Tucker consume Cain. Like the inflammatory stinging nettle plant, Cain views herself as a liability — “To love me is to suffer me.” The lyrics and composition on “Nettles” are perhaps the peak of artistic and narrative expression on all of “Willoughby Tucker.” The juxtaposition of angelic vocals and heartwrenching lyrics speaks to Anhedönia’s mastery.
“Dust Bowl” follows the instrumental “Willoughby’s Interlude” and similarly encapsulates Cain and Tucker’s star-crossed paths — “All of Alabama laid out in front of your eyes / But all you could see was me.” Emblematic of their love’s end, the song’s final minute features a distorted guitar riff-synth combination slowing into eerie silence.
By this point, the first half of the album shines; Anhedönia soars to new heights of songwriting and production. The lyrics engulf the listener in the emotional rollercoaster of Cain’s life and the interpersonal conflicts she faces — or tries to avoid. The momentum wanes, however, moving into the album’s second half; some lengthy instrumentals and overly layered vocals dull the lyrical portraits.
The only track written from Tucker’s perspective, “Tempest” demonstrates how Cain and Tucker’s relationship was doomed from the start. Cain never truly understood Tucker — his fear of the weather, being abandoned by his mother and so on — while Tucker taunts Cain’s shortcomings. Shaming her openness about the chaos of her family, Tucker implies Cain seeks sympathy, not relief: “Do you swing from your neck / With the hope someone cares?”
The album’s 15-minute closer, “Waco, Texas,” laments the lovers’ relationship from beginning to end. Their interdependence consumes them: “I keep the pictures hanging where the world can see ’em.” Ultimately, both come to realize that “Love is not enough in this world,” as their lives come crashing down.
“Willoughby Tucker” provides avid fans with the narrative background we have craved since “Preacher’s Daughter.” Tracks like “Nettles” and “Dust Bowl” are perfectly reminiscent of the stylization and profundity that first hooked listeners. While extended instrumentals sometimes lose listeners’ attention, they certainly hold up among “Televangelism” from “Preacher’s Daughter.”
Having shared the second installment of Cain’s story with all the same lyrical mastery and compositional prowess of the first, Anhedönia is sure to build on her cult following and continue constructing a world all her own but also unique to each listener — one’s own house in Nebraska.
