Raised in Wales and based in California, Cate Le Bon knows a bit about transitions. The glam-Bowie look she’s adopted in the video for “Wonderful,” Crab Day’s lead-off single, suggests that change is part of her art, and sure enough, she has moved on from the Velvety garage vibe of its predecessor, Mug Museum; only the sleepy reticence of her singing persists.
The music is more fractured, with stop/ start rhythms dominated by a big, flat snare tone that sounds like an early-’80s drum machine. Short, complicated instrumental breaks escape from the pauses in the songs, rather like broken-off pieces of a prog-rock movement, and references abound to a half-century of recorded music. The music’s trickiness never seems gratuitous, though, because the changes in direction correspond to a lyrical stance that articulates the struggle to figure out what’s constant in a world of change.
—Bill Meyer
