“This song is very slow,” says Ethel Cain, “and very sad and boring. It’s called Crush.” It’s not really any of those things, at least not relative to the other components of a 90-minute set which repeatedly and justifiably gazes into its own navel. It’s also the first song of a two-song encore, by which point it’s clear that the Floridian musician’s notably passionate fanbase have shown up and she can afford to be moderately arch.
I’d venture this was a wildcard booking in the now-annual Cardiff Castle summer programme. Cain, the artistic alias of Hayden Silas Anhedönia, exists in this strange and modern grey zone between cult appeal and actual mainstream stardom, with a musical approach to match. Her three albums to date, all featured this evening in varying quantities, wander (uniformly excellently) between Autotune-dusted alt-pop, Americana, shoegaze and forbidding experimental excursions. Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, the latest of the trio, is being toured extensively, but Cain is perhaps not yet a proven draw in the UK; of her four dates here, this one is by some distance the largest, and the castle grounds are some distance from being full.
After the 90s Britpop-via-90s alt-rock of opening act Bar Italia is absorbed with polite patience, Cain and her four-piece band take the foliage-bedecked stage to a cinematic intro which is louder than most of the set. Sunday Morning and American Teenager are upbeat enough to chime with the still-prevalent sunshine, while if moody alt-folk number Janie has its swoonable qualities, its early placement may be a wilful test of the audience’s dedication. If so, they score a pass here, and it’s no surprise to see the front rows singing word-perfect whenever the big screen cameras find them.
Songs such as Dust Bowl, on which Cain’s love of the slowcore subgenre is exercised, are only barely brushed up for big-gig consumption. A quasi-industrial drone section (Perverts, from the album of the same name) is a remarkable thing to experience in a setting like this, certainly if you’ve frittered enough of your life away watching similar-sounding acts playing to three dozen people in windowless rooms. Vacillator and the sludgy Ptolemaea, which follow, are no radio-friendly unit shifters either.
Collective attention is maintained across these stylistic cycles (hardly anyone is drinking, which is great for keeping idle chatter at a minimum) but there are certain moments the Ethel Cain ultras really raise their voice for. Swelling country-folk number Nettles is dispatched early on, but the emotionally fraught Tempest and A House In Nebraska – AOR guitar solo and all – lean into their climactic airs. The evening’s sign-off, Sun Bleached Flies, prompts a sea of raised-arms swaying which feels a little unsuited to the tenor of the song.
This was an odd evening in certain ways, but almost entirely in a good way. Ethel Cain has only had a public profile to speak of for about five years, and so must be learning on the job as well as operating in arenas (literal or otherwise) which are an unconventional fit for much of what she does. To that end, her success is a small beacon of hope, and can hopefully be marshalled over time. At least as important in all this is the opportunity and validation it gives young kids to be visibly queer in a space dedicated to celebrating this for a few hours.
Ethel Cain + Bar Italia, Cardiff Castle, Cardiff, Fri 19 June
words NOEL GARDNER photos DEPOT LIVE
