Ethel Cain
Apollo, Manchester
2nd October 2025
The opening evening of the Willoughby Tucker Without end European tour is an train in emotional ferocity
To be within the room on the opening evening of Ethel Cain’s largest European tour so far is to look at an inescapable reality; the paradigms of pop stardom have shifted. Traditionally, music of the kind that Cain makes doesn’t encourage enormous teen followings; the 27-year-old takes the usual blueprint for confessional singer-songwriter fare and cloaks it thickly within the brooding southern gothic ambiance of her Floridian upbringing, then stretches it out by imbuing it with moody, slowcore stylings. Her songs reward persistence, unfurling their sonic and thematic landscapes slowly. You aren’t more likely to hear something from her second full-length album, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll All the time Love You, on the radio.
And but, this two-night stand on the 3500-capacity Apollo bought out in minutes, and followers have been braving inclement Ardwick climate since midday within the hope of a spot on the barrier. What Cain’s tackle pop lacks in hooks and melody, it makes up for in an all-encompassing emotional depth. When she takes the stage tonight – one affected by tall grasses and hanging vines evocative of he rural south of her upbringing – she takes up place behind an enormous picket cross, delivering her songs as in the event that they’re a sermon, from the pulpit.
She has greater than earned the fitting to this sort of iconography; as a transgender lady from a Baptist household, she has walked via hearth and brimstone to be right here, delivering songs replete with unvarnished emotional truths. It is a present on her personal phrases, incorporating delicate, breathy alt-folk (Nettles, Janie) and lovely slow-burn atmosphere (Mud Bowl). There’s a hazy high quality to her sound that renders her songs like far-off recollections, significantly when she introduces a few songs mid-set from her droney curveball of a second LP, Perverts; the texture of those tracks then bleeds into the songs that comply with, significantly a dreamy Radio Towers.
What’s exceptional is how fascinating all of it is; there aren’t any huge theatrical prospers by way of both the music or the staging, however there’s actual drama working proper via this set, an emotional tumult to the lyrics that’s in distinction to her nonetheless, shadowy presence behind the cross. Delicate lighting does a lot of the work, often bathing her in an orange glow that implies she is surrounded by flames. She closes the principle set with Waco, Texas, a reasonably, glacially paced drift via Cain’s consciousness that runs to fifteen minutes. The gang is totally rapt all through.
If something, the encore breaks the spell slightly; there are huge, bouncy pop singalongs to Crush and American Teenager, the tracks that basically put her on the map. She has left that sound behind now, as an alternative taking us to a spot that David Lynch – who, in response to his daughter, hung out listening to Perverts in his ultimate days – would describe as each fantastic and unusual. Tonight appeared to show that the extra avant-garde Cain’s music turns into, the extra intense the emotional truths she uncovers. Crucially, her viewers are very a lot alongside for the trip.
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Ethel Cain could be discovered at her web site | Fb | and Instagram
Phrases by Joe Goggins: discover him on X right here
Pictures by Mike Grey: discover him on Instagram right here
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