Image Credit: AWAL

Still flaunting flying colours from her stand-out set at Glastonbury and several other feverish festival appearances, CMAT — moniker of Irish musician Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson — has likely crept her way into your playlist this summer in one way or another. Her witty, raw lyricism and eclectic sound make for an artist paving her own way in the pop scene, meshing country with her own Irish twang and maximalist instrumentals. Having refined her sound over the course of her breakout record, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead (2022) and amplified follow-up, Crazymad, For Me (2023), the Celtic superstar brandishes melodrama and candour in full pomp on her third studio album, EURO-COUNTRY. A play on the term, “Euro-pop,” CMAT nods back to her discography littered with country tracks such as “I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!” — a vine reference immortalised in sardonic yearning — and “Aw, Shoot!” — an existential tizzy on stagnation. The result is an opus on identity, relationships and womanhood penned by her ‘so funny it hurts’ style of absurdist songwriting that can only be attributed to the Dunboyne dynamo-diva herself. 

Opening with the title track ‘EURO-COUNTRY’ and one of several striking singles, this track establishes the record’s emotional resonance just as much as its infectious sound. CMAT uses a lilting Celtic opening riff before delving into the identity and sense of self that so many lost during the  Irish recession following the ‘Celtic Tiger’ period — “Everything I thought that I could be/(He cut it in half)/My Euro-Country.” Bitterness is projected through her snowballing bridge, and it’s a belter of a track that only CMAT could fashion to be chanted by the masses at festival crowds in the face of previous silence on the subject.

Another of her singles, pop-triumph ‘Take A Sexy Picture Of Me’ is an endlessly catchy tune which glimpses formative snapshots of toxic femininity and the societal pressures placed upon women: from the universal experience of being “Nine years old, tryna wax my legs with tape” to being constantly fed the idea that anti-ageing is the answer. The track emerged from CMAT’s own facing of mass ridicule and body shaming comments following BBC’s Big Weekend festival. It has made waves online with its nursery rhyme-esque bridge bemoaning the endless trial-and-error nature of female performativity  — “I did the home and the family maker/I did school girl fantasies” — and has become a staple in her discography for sure. 

‘Running/Planning’ tackles similar themes on the record’s penultimate closer: through trilling strings and CMAT’s fervid vocals, she laments the harsh realities of growing up a hopeless romantic, and the compulsions of heterosexual relationships. It’s a climactic track that divulges emotion through all the nuances of its melody, and a definite ear-worm for its repetitive chorus, “I keep on running, planning/Running, planning oh yeah.”

‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station,’ is utterly brilliant in its absurdity: what initially comes across as a targeted dislike for the celebrity chef, “I need a deli, but god I hate him,” is actually a realisation of how one projection of negativity onto the world can transform your entire worldview. It’s ironic, comedic and lyrically ridiculous as her attempts to humanise Jamie Oliver are turned into self-scolding — “Ciara, don’t be a bitch/The man’s got kids and they wouldn’t like this.” The entire track accelerates into yells and crashing cymbals with its final chorus — a pure madness as infectious as it is suggestive of bearing witness to a car crash.

It’s on EURO-COUNTRY that CMAT’s signature Irish coupling with the country genre really shines, especially on the shindigging ‘When A Good Man Cries.’ A real standout of the entire album, CMAT coins herself “The people’s mess/Dunboyne Diana,” in coming to terms with the guilt in hurting a partner. Cavorting fiddle and CMAT’s fiercely layered vibrato entwine throughout its progression, and the track culminates in her avowal to change, through hearty cries of “Kyrie Eleison!” — “Lord, have mercy!”

Another of CMAT’s virtues on this record is her capacity for starkly candid lyricism and storytelling. On ‘Iceberg,’ her sentiments for a struggling friend come to life through their debate on the door at the end of Titanic; ‘Coronation St.’ cements itself as an instant, solemn, indie tune with a frank sadness and boygenius-like chord progression — “I’m 23 and everyone is having fun except for me.”; follow-up, ‘Lord, Let That Tesla Crash’ is vivid in its stream-of-consciousness exploration of her grief for a late friend, and how this manifests in different ways — “I don’t miss you like I should/But I’d kill myself to find out if you think this song is good.”

The closer, ‘Janis Joplining,’ emerges through plinking, blues-y piano and a Fiona Apple charm, in a disjointed diversion from the rest of the album. “I wanted to end on a note that sounds like I think I have a solution to all the problems I’ve just spoken about for 45 minutes,” CMAT notes on the track, where her divulgence of “I’m Janis Joplining anyway” — the name she gives to self-destructing — plays out through self-examination and a bursting desire to “talk intimately with everyone in the world,” in conversational riffing atop smooth-rolling drums. 

CMAT has been steadily rolling out tune after tune for years now, but on EURO-COUNTRY she has by now certainly secured herself the status of a pop sensation. Where the record’s instrumentals are fairly cohesive throughout, there’s something so genius in her lyricism that wipes you out on a first listen and sets her apart as a musician in a league of her own. She’s already proven herself a bona fide performer on the stage and in front of crowds, no matter the size, and with her upcoming North America, UK and Ireland tours, it’s all eyes on CMAT from this moment onwards.