Few artists manage to position themselves at the centre of both the commercial and critical zeitgeists, and even fewer do so with a vision as uncompromising as that of Hayden Anhedönia. Through the eyes of Ethel Cain, the singer-songwriter has been spinning a complex conceptual web over the past few years, using each subsequent release to expand on her persona’s deeply harrowing lore (all while continuing to level up as a musician and performer). New record ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’ is only her second full-length release— though only by technicality, as EP ‘Perverts’ actually outstrips it in length— yet has released to unending waves of praise and attention: we’d have to agree that the response is well-deserved, even despite the project’s numerous rough edges.

After the extreme experiments Anhedönia undertook to create this year’s ‘Perverts,’ it should be no surprise to hear ‘Willoughby Tucker…’ diving into some of the richest soundscapes of 2025— though the new release may not showcase quite as much ambition behind the mixing desk as that EP did, it nonetheless falls right in line with what you’d expect from this leg of Cain’s career. Anhedönia’s latest work is so drawn-out and atmospheric as to border on ambient music, winding its way through a series of thoughtful, reverb-soaked mood pieces across its 73-minute runtime: three of its ten tracks are completely instrumental (though when lead vocals do appear, they tend to settle seamlessly in amongst these sonic landscapes). A cut like ‘A Knock At The Door’ goes to great lengths to illustrate just how enthralling the Ethel Cain sound palate can be, building itself a wondrous atmosphere via nothing but acoustic guitars, gentle keys and Anhedönia’s mournful voice leading— elsewhere, the record’s use of melancholic strings, blown-out percussion and distant pianos show themselves to be similarly captivating, making ‘Willoughby Tucker…’ something of a masterclass in auditory wonder.

The album’s instrumental palate is certainly broad— banjos, organs and fiddles all play their part across the LP— yet consistently feels underutilised: for all the diverse and intriguing elements that make up these ten tracks, ‘Willoughby Tucker…’ is a shockingly singular experience. Each cut is allowed only a modicum of room to stretch its legs, with everything from the sorrowful country of opener ‘Janie’ to the cinematic synths of ‘Radio Towers’ existing in a disappointingly narrow band of emotion and expression: if Ethel Cain’s sophomore release is a mood piece, it’s not a particularly diverse one. By the end of closer ‘Waco, Texas’— a fifteen-minute odyssey of a track— the richness and novelty borne of Anhedönia’s prowess in production has run dry, exposing just how reliant ‘Willoughby Tucker…’ is on the impact of its soundscapes.

What the album’s withdrawn atmosphere does accomplish, however, is serving its narrative: this is an Ethel Cain project, after all, and so is bound to be dripping with subtlety and conceptual baggage. ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’ acts as a prequel to the horrifying events of 2022’s ‘Preacher’s Daughter,’ centring itself around a whirlwind romance with the titular (and fictitious) Tucker. Anhedönia continues to disguise her conceptual plot lines in layers of metaphor and human drama, focusing more on Cain’s perspective than on hammering the narrative into the listener: this record’s tale of romance and lost love is to be felt, rather than dissected, with choices like the jealous remarks of ‘Janie’ and thoughtful musings of ‘Waco, Texas’ tugging at the heartstrings again and again.

“I've been picking names for our children

You've been wondering how you're going to feed them

Love is not enough in this world

But I still believe in Nebraska, dreaming

'Cause I'd rather die than be anything but your girl”

There really is a lot of gorgeous material to dive into here, on both a musical and a lyrical front. Opener ‘Janie’ eases the listener back into Ethel Cain’s world with a powerful finesse, gradually introducing a series of gentle guitar lines alongside soothing (if somewhat characterless) lead vocals— lead single ‘Nettles’ takes those ideas and greatly expands them into a sprawling exploration of young love intertwined with grief. While its charm lasts, ‘Willoughby Tucker…’ gets a hell of a lot of mileage out of its luscious soundscapes, allowing those three instrumental interludes to grow into cinematic epics— they may not be as ambitious as their contemporaries from ‘Perverts’ or as memorable as the best moments of ‘Preacher’s Daughter,’ but often sit in a happy middle ground between the two. Penultimate cut ‘Tempest’ is also a notable standout, coasting along on its heavenly refrains of “forever, forever, forever”— the song’s heartfelt atmosphere is stunning, and probably could’ve made for an excellent final note for the project.

Elsewhere, Anhedönia’s latest efforts can lost their lustre (hardly a surprising revelation, given the record’s combination of length and stagnancy). ‘Waco, Texas’ may serve an important role in the narrative, but lacks the musical punch to match, wandering through the same melancholic writing devices as cut after cut preceding it: ‘Dust Bowl’ is similarly inessential, though it’s really the song’s repetitive vocal inflections that might rub you the wrong way. Oddly enough though, it’s actually the most diverse moment on the record— the synth-heavy ‘F*ck Me Eyes’— that stands as its weakest, interrupting the carefully crafted mood for an oddly-placed detour of a cut (one that, ideally, might’ve been left off this strikingly lengthy record).

‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You’ is another strong addition to the Ethel Cain catalogue— really, were you expecting anything else? The project’s soundscapes, lyrical motifs and rich atmospheres are sure to grab the attention of both critics and audiences alike, as Anhedönia’s second full-length LP will no doubt wind up as a year-end favourite for many. The album may be a little too long, a little too predictable, a little too sentimental for our tastes, but don’t let that put you off: for its captivating mood alone, the project is well-worth exploring.