Cate Le Bon – Pompeii

Cate Le Bon's latest record Pompeii is an expansive account of her continuing artistic growth

Album Review by Bethany Davison | 01 Feb 2022
  • Cate Le Bon - Pompeii
Album title: Pompeii
Artist: Cate Le Bon
Label: Mexican Summer
Release date: 4 Feb

If 2019’s Reward was situated in rediscovering the joy of artistry, Cate Le Bon’s follow-up Pompeii, for all its breadth in referential qualities, becomes a record distilled in reinvention – of the self, the artist. Reserved at times, though satiated throughout, it's a record that practises the art of never giving too much away.

From the beat of its metronomic opening, Pompeii walks us through its structural intricacies with a grace and control that is lauded by the leanings of the absurd in its lyrics. 'I’ve pushed my love through the hourglass,' sings Le Bon, on the album’s titular track, as though preparing to turn herself into a new gravity. 

Her flirtations with pop structures on tracks such as Harbour and Remembering Me introduce a playfulness to the record that is in constitution with its pillars of irony. The latter becomes a stand-out moment on the record as Le Bon shifts her address to stare out through the lens with which she lets us in, before turning away just as quickly into album closer Wheel. Bolstered with warm tones of sax and synth, bearing colourful thumbprints of the past, Pompeii is certainly a success of Le Bon’s continual daring. 

Listen to: Running Away, Remembering Me, Harbour

http://catelebon.com