CMAT Has a Sharp-Eyed, Honey-Coated Message For the World: Do Better

CMAT – Credit: Sarah Doyle*

“Another good idea/I saved the messages you sent the night you tried to sleep with her/Happy new year,” Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson — a.k.a. the Irish singer-songwriter CMAT — coos at the outset of “Tree Six Foive,” a barn-dance kiss-off from her third album Euro-Country. It offers a neat encapsulation of what has made CMAT such a standout talent since she released her first singles at the beginning of the decade: the line paints a bad relationship in hyper-detailed miniature; it’s self — and other — lacerating in a way that resembles a single, gasped guffaw; and her sweetly serpentine voice means that the blades she’s wielding come coated in honey.

CMAT is an astute observer, whether she’s looking inward or outward. Her frank, wry depictions of female ambition’s dark side (the loose-limbed “Iceberg”), departing from the spouse-and-kids norm (the chiming “Running/Planning,” which has a sumptuous chorus), and the late-‘00s Irish recession (the spectacular title track) are balanced by an audible empathy that also lays bare her hopes for the world’s fates to improve. Those hopes are given extra wistfulness by how CMAT’s songs are laid out; they blend the storytelling-focused lyrics and twangy instrumentation of Nashville with the plush splendor of 21st-century folk-ish pop, as well as the occasional rock meltdown.

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Take the mini-epic “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station,” which begins as an internal monologue drenched in celebrity disdain (“That man should not have his face on posters,” she matter-of-factly broods), its skip-step chug growing in intensity as the real reasons for her annoyance — social anxiety, economic anxiety, aggravation over wasting precious time on people who she’ll likely never meet — come into focus. It soon blows up into a full-on maelstrom, CMAT telling herself, “Ciara don’t be a bitch/The man’s got kids,” over and over as guitars rage and drums get flung around. Eventually, things smooth out enough for her to get back to merely being rankled — “I feel so angry or sad at most, huh,” she sighs one last time as the song peters out.

Like other world-weary pop chroniclers of modern life (particularly Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker), CMAT’s music draws people in, whether because of its undeniable hookiness or her candy-striped voice, before they realize the depth of her (mostly correct) commentary on the world’s ills. “Take A Sexy Picture Of Me” is a lump of coal shrouded in elaborately spun silk, bringing together the giddy sonics of young pop love with the realities of contemporary sexuality. Its Wall of Sound production, complete with heaven-sent backing vocals, belie the bleakness of its lyrics, which open with CMAT recalling how she was “nine years old tryna wax [her] legs with tape” so she could achieve the youthfully abstracted concept of “sexiness” and end with her noting that she’s willing to act out even the most debasing fantasies so a potential partner will “be nice” to her. That longing puts it very in line with modern pop — but she magnifies its uncomfortably real details in a way that implicitly asks, “Can’t we do better?” This fiery, splendid collection of songs should make listeners want to step up their efforts.

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