Ethel, Cain / Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You (2LP)

Ethel Cains second studio album, Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You, is a hazy, heart-wrenching prequel to her 2022 breakthrough Preachers Daughter sprawling 73-minute tapestry of first love, inevitable doom, and the golden rot of teenage nostalgia. Originally conceived as a B-sides EP for outtakes from her debut, it ballooned into a full concept album, recorded across home studios in Coraopolis, PA, and Tallahassee, FL. Hayden Anhedonia (Cains real name) handles production solo, layering reverb-drenched guitars, ethereal drones, and her signature gossamer vocals into a sonic sepia tone that evokes endless Southern summers dissolving into tragedy. It's less operatic than Preachers Daughters gothic horror no cannibalism here but no less devastating, trading visceral gore for the quiet ache of lost innocence in a love triangle with a boy named Willoughby Tucker and the spectre of death itself.