CATE LE BON Vinyl & CDs

Review: RECOMMENDED
If you're already familiar with Cate Le Bon's spectacularly accomplished oeuvre, then when we say Pompeii is probably her most complex, innovative, and wildly ambitious effort to date you should understand just how big that statement is. Once Wales' enfant terrible loosely comparable to the PJ Harveys of this world, since arriving circa 2007 her reputation has grown, and she has long been considered among Britain's greatest contemporary musicians, a guitar master, and a songwriter extraordinaire.

The opiate, freewheeling, pseudo-1960s rock vibes have waned in that time, though, making more room for surrealist pop to take the mantle as guiding light. Pompeii uses this more than perhaps any other of her albums, offering listeners a sumptuous adventure through weird operatics, otherworldly balladry, synth-y choral, and much more besides. A triumph, once again.