Albums to watch

Pompeii

Cate Le Bon

Pompeii

Sixth album from the Welsh folk/rock singer-songwriter co-produced with Samur Khouja

ADM rating[?]

8.1

Label
Mexican Summer
UK Release date
04/02/2022
US Release date
04/02/2022
  1. 10.0 |   The Independent

    Written in complete isolation in Cardiff, Pompeii demonstrates Le Bon’s flair for the surreal, while exploring themes close to home: religious guilt, family, death
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  2. 10.0 |   Albumism

    It’s an art-pop soundscape of isolation, and of identity—both individual and collective
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  3. 9.0 |   Under The Radar

    Compared with Reward, these songs fill up greater volumes, but they still in many ways feel like companion pieces, united by a reverential dedication to the oblique as the direct, the spasm as control, the heart as the mind
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  4. 9.0 |   Uncut

    As with all of Le Bon's projects, the claustrophobic, wonderfully awkward whole is very much her own. Print edition only

  5. 9.0 |   Loud And Quiet

    Pompeii is yet another outstanding turn from Cate Le Bon; sincere, timeless and endlessly rewarding
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  6. 8.5 |   Pitchfork

    A waking dreamscape whose locked-in grooves approach the unknowable at slanted angles
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  7. 8.4 |   Paste Magazine

    On her sixth LP, the Welsh avant rocker uses time-honored, tragic influences to help her make sense of the urgent, unfurling present
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  8. 8.2 |   Beats Per Minute

    The album reaffirms what makes Le Bon’s music such a useful prism to process thoughts and feelings that feel too immense to articulate within traditional means
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  9. 8.0 |   musicOMH

    It will further enhance her reputation as a distinctive, no-frills artist with a unique style, and its thought provoking lyrics will take the listener in unexpected directions. Make sure you listen
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  10. 8.0 |   The Irish Times

    The nine tracks on Pompeii constitute a pleasingly coherent collection that forms its own sonic universe, confirming not onlythat Cate Le Bon is as good as everyone makes her out to be, but that she’s even better
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  11. 8.0 |   NME

    The Welsh artist's sixth record wields strange imagery in gloomier ways than before, evoking the eerie echo of Bowie’s ‘Station to Station’
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  12. 8.0 |   DIY

    A quiet reinvention in the face of adversity
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  13. 8.0 |   Northern Transmissions

    Her authorship is unmissable on Pompeii, but a new book is being written, one with all of the charms and thrills of her past work and plenty of new ones. Even if you don’t understand all of them at first, you’ll appreciate the experience
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  14. 8.0 |   All Music

    The dense and shrouded nature of this album means you sometimes have to wait for the clouds to clear before certain lines resonate or choruses grab you, but once they do, they don't let go
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  15. 8.0 |   Gigwise

    An amalgam of absurdist pop and dissonant instrumentation
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  16. 8.0 |   The Quietus

    It conjures up a wistfulness for times you don't even necessarily want to revisit. Beneath all the complex layering of instruments, the whirlwind of sounds and styles, it’s these simple and powerful feelings that cut through
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  17. 8.0 |   The Line Of Best Fit

    Cate Le Bon daringly explores the obscure corners of pop on Pompeii
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  18. 8.0 |   Mojo

    The corners of these songs might not snag quite as dangerously as before, but there's no blunting of the fascination Le Bon's songwriting so expertly exerts. Print edition only

  19. 8.0 |   The Skinny

    Cate Le Bon's latest record Pompeii is an expansive account of her continuing artistic growth
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  20. 8.0 |   Clash

    ‘Pompeii’ joins that pantheon of exotic, occasionally surreal records, and at a time when everything feels either dreary or unsafe, it’s an extraordinary balm
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  21. 8.0 |   Exclaim

    Altogether, Pompeii lands somewhere between Hejira-era Joni Mitchell and the solo work of Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier — rarified air where Le Bon undoubtedly belongs
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  22. 7.0 |   PopMatters

    With its multi-layered arrangements and art-rock leanings, Cate Le Bon’s Pompeii is a disorienting record, one wholly appropriate for our time
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  23. 7.0 |   The Music

    Eternity abides in each moment; the wisdom Le Bon offers is centuries old
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  24. 6.0 |   The Observer

    An almost entirely solo affair, the Welsh musician’s sixth album encapsulates feelings of lockdown with a nod to mid-70s Bowie
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  25. 6.0 |   The FT

    At times the Welsh singer is redolent of David Bowie in her sixth solo effort
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