Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You

Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You is Ethel Cain’s sophomore concept album, the follow up to her 2022 debut, Preacher’s Daughter. A prequel, it details the events before the debut and centres on Willoughby Tucker, a fictional character, Ethel’s past lover, first named in her earlier song “A House in Nebraska.” It was released on August 8, 2025, through her own independent label, Daughters of Cain Records.

Across ten tracks the record follows that first love from its giddy beginning to its long, foreknown undoing, lingering on youth and place, desire and tenderness, and the grief the listener already knows is waiting. Musically it is patient and expansive, built from ambient passages, slowcore, and a worn Americana, several songs stretching well past the lengths of conventional pop. It opens in warmth and closes in ruin, carrying the saga to the exact edge where Preacher’s Daughter begins.