Review: Southern Gothic songstress Ethel Cain connects with fans

With intense and lyrically dense songs about abuse and religious trauma, you might expect Ethel Cain to be hyper-focused on her fiction — and thus introverted onstage. But she was refreshingly personable and engaging, encouraging the crowd to sing along and jump in time to the music.

But make no mistake: Her fans were out in full force not for her personality, but her lyrics, some of which brought them to tears.

Cain’s set featured songs from her concept albums, “Preacher’s Daughter” and “Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You.” The show demonstrated her mastery of multiple genres, including rock, pop, Americana, folk, country and ambient music. And, thematically, it unfolded like a Southern Gothic novel combined with a horror film and steamy TV drama.

Against a backdrop of green foliage and a wooden cross, Cain kicked things off with the upbeat “American Teenager,” followed by “Nettles.” During the latter song, a hush fell over the crowd as Cain’s delicate soprano filled the air. Later, the set took a darker turn with “Ptolemaea,” inspired by Dante’s hellish “Inferno.” The audience joined in with Cain’s anguished chants to “make it stop” before erupting into a scream.

Standout moments included Cain’s renditions of the guitar-heavy “Dust Bowl,” soaring “A House in Nebraska” and harmonica-accentuated “Thoroughfare.” Other crowd favorites included “Gibson Girl” and “Crush.”

Even in Cain’s romantic songs, there is an undercurrent of pain, and the singer herself as proven to be just as complex. Recently, she has been embroiled in controversy, sparked by a weird feud with Lana Del Ray and the resurfacing of her racist posts on social media when she was a teenager. Cain has apologized for the latter, claiming she has grown. Let’s hope that is true, so every fan can feel included in her moving work.