Over the winter of 2005, Dienel recorded Wind-Up Canary in a farmhouse in Leominster, Massachusetts, with friends from her time at the New England Conservatory of Music and a piano borrowed from a nearby hotel lobby.

Writing in CMJ New Music Monthly, Steve Ciabottoni described the album as a "whimsical, lo-fi debut...With touches of saloon tunes, marches and coffeehouse folk, Dienel's song swing between genres and eras like Rufus Wainwright and Regina Spektor.

"[2] Writing at NPR on the release of Wind-Up Canary, Michael Katzif described Dienel's style as an "intricate and melodic mixture of jazz, rock and the American songbook.

"[1] In Pitchfork, reviewer Stephen Deusner said Dienel's "songs show traces of Nellie McKay's subversive formalism, Regina Spektor's bizarro cabaret, and Tori Amos's sweeping scope, but Dienel could be just as easily and fruitfully compared to those outside her camp-- to the Decemberists or Clem Snide or to literary types like George Saunders and Z.Z.

"[5] The Wired review said, "I'm totally smitten by her lackadaisical and smiling style, somewhere between Fiona Apple, Mirah and Sarah Harmer, and the album's a consistent spring-time pleasure.