Hayden Anhedönia isn’t shy of indulging in the tragic heroine trope; her musical persona Ethel Cain, after all, is the embodiment of that. The fictional Ethel Cain, as we learned in the debut album Preacher’s Daughter, was born into a Faulkner-esque life of poverty, conservatism, religious guilt, and misogyny that plagues her dying, Southern gothic town. Death and trauma follow her like vengeful ghosts with spindly arms, quickly creeping up on her and snatching everyone she passes by in the process. But, the prequel Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You gives her character a well-needed and refreshing break, allowing her to feel love, safety, and tenderness with her first-ever boyfriend, the eponymous Willoughby Tucker. Though it’s much slower and sprawling, even forgoing some of the poppiness that cemented Preacher’s Daughter as a triumphant breakout album, Ethel Cain’s sophomore album is, for the most part, warm and down-to-earth. Its country rock foundation makes for a soothing, charming exploration of teenage love—all its chaos, high-stakes emotions, and purity.

Understandably, Preacher’s Daughter had a lot of conceptual ground to cover through the music. Cain’s debut—a conceptual biography of the fictional Ethel—presented each song as a vignette of the most important moments in her life. This, in turn, allowed the songs to stand on their own. “Thoroughfare,” for example, is the nine-minute, windswept, cinematic folk rock song about running away with one’s lover; “Sun-Bleached Files” is the melancholic, guilt-ridden choral swan song about a town fading into dust, also discussing the effects of conservative Christian values on its people. Willoughby Tucker, on the other hand, is not as much of a storybook, finding more liberties to hang around in the spaces between words. The instrumental tracks (“Willoughby’s Theme” and “Willoughby’s Interlude”) replace plot for emotion, showcasing more of Anhedönia’s compositional skills. The theme, for instance, mimics the blossoming of a flower. It begins tightly closed around a central beat—a resonant, woody upright piano—before blooming into subtle flourishes and thunderous striking of electric guitar chords that swirl into a twinkly, spectral cloud of piano trills, droning hums, and reverberation. The interlude, double the theme’s length, is equally romantic, adding in imitations of church organs, winds, and acoustic guitars to craft a sense of swelling intensity. Like falling in love, the music in both tracks trickles in slowly, pooling until one finally notices there’s a whole flood around them. The tenderness of Cain’s emotions comes with every tap of the piano key, every pluck of the guitar string, and every breath that turns into wind.

Much of Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You is within Ethel Cain’s lyrical comfort zone. “Fuck Me Eyes” is a smart, 80s-inspired synth pop tune in the same vein as “American Teenager” that reads like a page ripped straight out of a frustrated teenage girl’s diary. “I’ll never blame her, I kinda hate her,” she sings in the bridge after drawing a portrait of a pretty girl she’s been obsessively observing and making assumptions about. “I’ll never be that kind of angel / I’ll never be kind enough to me / I’ll never blame her for trying to make it / But I’ll never be the kind of angel / He would see.” This big, raucous track—completed by Ethel Cain breaking out into a yell, “But no one ever wants to take her home!”—revels in the ridiculousness of adolescent insecurity, digging into the compulsive cattiness and not-yet-realized misogyny of a young girl just wanting to be seen as desirable by other teen boys.

“Waco, TX” holds that same earnest, innocent love many express when it’s their first time, using all fifteen minutes of this grandiose, rock anthem-esque finale to discuss romance and heartbreak in this bittersweet, almost grotesque way. (Though, the cannibalization sketched out in Preacher’s Daughter track “Strangers” is much more intense than a boyfriend skipping town.) She mourns the imaginary babies she named but never had and blames herself for his leaving her, repeating how much she “hurt” him without ever knowing why or how. Suddenly, the ideas of “we’re going to be together forever!” that engulf many people’s first relationships rip apart, and the sourness of reality finally creeps up on her as the music slows to a wobbly timbre of the upright piano. If nothing else, Anhedönia has proven yet again that she is a gifted storyteller; one can always find at least a fragment of themself in the characters of her Southern gothic tales.

I am pleasantly surprised by how much Perverts informed this record, seeing as she considered her EP as a separate, one-off project. We most directly hear it in the instrumental song “Radio Towers,” which borrows the eerie, ambient drone of the EP to create a sonic portrait of a barren landscape. As the piano trudges on, playing slowed-down, reimagined, and fragmented pieces of “Willoughby’s Theme,” the radio tower beeps like a heart rate monitor, giving the impression of a gradual, weak death. But, most effective was the evolution of the Perverts centerpiece “Vacillator,” a slow, tender folk rock track about sexual intimacy that plays like a warm, welcoming embrace. “Nettles,” though lyrically riddled with anxiety, is musically her most comforting track on Willoughby Tucker. It begins with a gorgeous fiddle introduction, complemented by the gliding of a steely guitar. The country folk closes in as the song progresses, peeling away from this ethereal, cavernous echoing into a jaunty, banjo-led swing. The sadness melts when she sings, “Tell me all the time not to worry / And think of all the time I’ll, I’ll have with you / When I won’t wake up on my own / Held close all the time, knowin’ I’m half of you.” The song is bright and full of hope and energy, effectively challenging Cain’s tendency to teeter more on the side of dark, resigned tragedy.

Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You is long and lingering, rarely ever reaching a pulse above a resting heart rate. Though it’s not as tightly edited as its predecessor, its beauty is found in its wistfulness, its lush and expansive sound design, and its winding structure. It’s full of fresh air and charm; Ethel Cain’s love is clearly in every breath.

Pre-order Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You by Ethel Cain HERE