Euro-Country, the third album from CMAT, finds the Dunboyne songwriter deliver her most captivating and compelling collection of songs to date with a mix of earworm melodrama, tear-jerking dating disasters and lashings of self-deprecating humour.
Alongside all the hi-jinks we’ve come to expect courtesy of CMAT’s quizzical world-view, she also delivers her most devastating ballad to date, ‘Lord, Let That Tesla Crash’, a stunning exploration of the non-linear path of grief rather than a poke at the expense at world’s biggest fan of ketamine. The bravery to expose herself in such a way perhaps better than any other track on the album illustrates her growing scope as a songwriter.
The album begins in the most unexpected fashion. The zen-like shoreline soundscape of ‘Billy Byrne From Ballybrack, The Leader of The Pigeon Convoy’ with its one-sided phone conversation about westerly wind, gives way to the Irish language verse of Euro-Country’s titular track as the album cracks into life.
It’s an oddity on first listen, but Billy Byrne clicks into place as Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson delivers her now infamous line, “I was 12 when the das started killing themselves all around me.” It becomes patently clear that The Leader of The Pigeon Convoy represents the ordinary man who lost everything during the crash, and how Ireland writ large lost its way during the Celtic Tiger.
It’s a set-up and payoff that hits hard when it arrives, and a timely reminder why Bertie Ahern should never be the President of Ireland and that no matter how hard political figures try to sweep things under the carpet, the children of the recession suffered and will not forget about it. The kids currently growing up in hotels won’t forget about it either. Pearl-clutchers be warned! Songs about that will be on the radio long before trains start arriving at Dublin Airport.
There are affectionate celebrity name-drops for Kerry Katona, Cerys Matthews and Princess Diana woven throughout the album. Cú Chulainn is even used as a vibe check for her state of mind. Poor old Jamie Oliver becomes the comedy villain/affectionate victim of her hunger pains in the petrol station deli queue. It may make no sense to the average listener, but it’s a thoroughly impressive flight of fancy, dripping with illuminating Easter eggs about her life as a walking talking Snickers advert. It’s with moments like this that CMAT’s love for the observational, truth-in-fiction lyrics of XTC shines through with ‘Finglas, Tennessee’ becoming her personal Barrytown to populate as she sees fit.
Noel Gallagher would no doubt approve of mid-paced acoustic sad banger ‘Coronation St.’ which is reminiscent of Oasis’ theme song to Caroline Aherne’s working-class masterpiece The Royle Family. Here, CMAT recounts a maudlin time in her life when she lived in a flat backing onto the beloved Manchester soap’s set in the build-up to her meeting Charli XCX and the superstar telling her to move home and make music with her friends if she really wanted to be a musician.
The pure pop perfection of anti-troll anthem ‘Take A Sexy Picture of Me’, CMAT’s most successful song to date, highlights her ability to recycle her sorrows into potent, universal dance move ready moments. ‘Ready’ meanwhile sees CMAT go full ‘80s power ballad with lashings of delicious throwback harmonies for added measure. Arguably CMAT’s finest vocal performance to date, it’s the kind of positive “You can do it” explosion that would’ve pushed Cindy Lauper or Annie Lennox to the top of the pop charts back when radio had its finger on the pulse.
Elsewhere on the album CMAT leans into her country aesthetic on ‘When A Good Man Cries’, ‘Three Six Foive’ and the Titanic themed ‘Iceberg’. Here, as throughout the album, it is the meticulous attention to detail being paid to additional instrumentation and vocal layering which elevates these songs from CMAT’s previous work.
Euro Country concludes with one last twist, the piano centred ‘Janis Joplining’ which finds CMAT stretching her musical wings with the type of jazz motif you’d expect to find anchoring a Fiona Apple track. And when you consider that she was also involved in the finest moments on Blossoms’ recent album Gary, it would be fair to say that CMAT is in the songwriting form of her life.
Euro-Country is a sophisticated step forward from an artist who continues to carve her own path towards the centre of pop culture on her own terms. What more could you ask for?