When Cate Le Bon drops lines like "You kill me with empathy / crave solidarity," it doesn't bear the emotional weight of a pining singer-songwriter. Instead, it conveys all the disaffected whimsy of a Wes Anderson movie, and it's not just Le Bon's heavy Velvet Underground influence that invites such a comparison. The songs on her new album CYRK are packed with gags — noisy whirligigs and pitch-descending doodads that accentuate the music's quirkiness. But the playful embellishments don't just complement Le Bon's sentiment; they also counterbalance her placidity.
In spite of its simple structure, "Puts Me to Work" is full of details that make it charming, such as its campy choral background and Le Bon's thick Welsh accent. She's fond of guitars that warble and crackle in equal measure, and "Puts Me to Work" rocks surprisingly hard. Relentless and steady snare-driven drums take over by the end to characterize the song's forward motion and hint at a side to Le Bon that's much more loud and chaotic.
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