Skip to content
Riot Fest
Tickets
Search
  • Lineup
  • Tickets
  • Album Plays
  • Experience
    • FAQ
    • Lockers
    • Hotels
  • Merch
  • Upcoming Shows
  • Community
    • Beyond the Fest
    • Community Tickets
    • Local Hiring
    • Park Cleanups
    • Vendor Workshops
    • Community Meeting
  • Search
Premiere: Ethel Cain’s “The God” is the Perfect Dose of Midwest Psychedelic Horror

Premiere: Ethel Cain’s “The God” is the Perfect Dose of Midwest Psychedelic Horror

Watch a chilling music video timed perfectly for Halloween
October 30, 2020 (December 6, 2022) // Miles Raymer

The Midwest is a deeply haunted place. When the days get shorter and the trees drop their leaves, the landscape’s creepiness comes out and the various spirits and curses that haunt it feel so close you can almost touch them.

Indiana resident Ethel Cain is a recent transplant to the Midwest, but she seems intimately familiar with the region’s type of peculiar shadowy strangeness, and makes gorgeous, haunting dream-folk-pop that evokes it in cinematic ways. Her Golden Age EP from last year has a dark supernatural lost-in-the-woods-at-night feel that reminds me of classic rustic horror like Children of the Corn, The Wicker Man, and the incredible (but unjustly obscure) historical documentary Wisconsin Death Trip. But for her new video, for a spooky and sprawling electronic track called “The God,” she takes a different approach, channeling the slick psychedelic eroticism of vintage Italian giallo movies and the generations of horror filmmakers who’ve been influenced by them (and showing off some truly vertigo-inducing stripper heels while she’s at it).

“I made the first demo of this song almost two years ago,” Cain tells us. “I was listening to scary podcasts on a long drive home one night, and I came to a particular episode where a man was walking his dog through a field when the sky suddenly turned red and he looked up and saw a massive, godlike creature moving across the horizon, towering all the way up into the sky. I wondered what it must feel like to be in the guts of such a beast, hot and red and smothering. I’ve used this song as an entrance track during live shows before but I finally got a wild hair recently to spruce it up and film a video. I recently moved into an old church and thought it would be the perfect setting.”


 

The Related Rabbit Hole

Premiere: Flatfoot 56 ably revives its song “Cain” for new EP “Midwest (Make Love To) Me”: We Premiere a New Song from the All Brights Premiere: Catbite’s “Excuse Me Miss” is The Perfect Roller-Ska Song for Summer
About The Author
Miles Raymer

Posted in New MusicTagged halloween, music video, new music, Premieres

Post navigation

  Previous PostNext Post 
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
  • Spotify
Riot Fest Tickets
Upcoming Shows Playlist
Riot Fest Presents Shows
May. 12, 2025
Cobra Lounge
Melrose Avenue

Melrose Avenue

latenightsinmycar.

joyful.

Tickets(Opens in new window).
Melrose Avenue
May. 16, 2025
Cobra Lounge
Catbite

Catbite

Rodeo Boys

Bev Rage & The Drinks

Tickets(Opens in new window).
Catbite
May. 17, 2025
Cobra Lounge
Hidden In Plain View

Hidden In Plain View

High Wire

Tickets(Opens in new window).
Hidden In Plain View
May. 24, 2025
Club Garibaldi
Murphy’s Law

Murphy’s Law

Total Chaos

Tickets(Opens in new window).
Murphy’s Law
May. 25, 2025
Bottom Lounge
Sarah and the Sundays

Sarah and the Sundays

Rat Tally

Tickets(Opens in new window).
Sarah and the Sundays
May. 29, 2025
Thalia Hall
The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years

Little Kruta String Ensemble

Kevin Devine

Tickets(Opens in new window).
The Wonder Years

MORE SHOWS

Greatest Hits

2025 FESTIVAL PARTNERS


  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
  • Spotify
  • Mail

NEWSLETTER — FAQ — CONTACT — HISTORY

InstagramTwitterYouTubeTikTokFacebook

Copyright © 2025 Riot Fest Corporation. Privacy Policy.

Search for:

Send me emails so I don’t have to go to your website anymore.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkNoPrivacy policy