REVIEW: CMAT Drops Title Track From Her Forthcoming Album ‘EURO-COUNTRY’
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY SAHAR GHADIRIAN ☆
Photo By Sarah Doyle
EUPHORIC AND HEARTACHINGLY BEAUTIFUL, THE KIND OF MUSIC THAT MAKES YOU FALL TO YOUR KNEES — Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson returns with the title track of her forthcoming album EURO-COUNTRY. Delicate and unapologetic, she fuses her signature country pop melodies with a propelling percussive beat as she ruminates on her life in Ireland. There’s social discourse, a sprinkling of her much-admired wit, and the powerhouse bridge that acts as a release for these personal and political reflections, proving the interconnectedness between both.
“All the big boys / all the berties / all the envelopes / yeah they hurt me / I was 12 when the das started killing themselves all around me / And it was normal / building houses / that stay empty even now yeah / and no one says it out loud / but i know it can be better if we hound it”
CMAT references the scandal of former Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, as well as the boom and collapse of the economy in the mid-2000s, which birthed ghost estates, higher suicide rates, and the big recession. The music video conceptualizes this and lost dreams, with the backdrop of a local shopping mall. A place that may now feel like a relic of a bygone time and the product of capitalism’s changing pace, this formerly coveted lifestyle - its influence, its wealth, and the pressures attached to it - are now fading and shifting in direction.
Stepping into her third studio record (dropping on August 29), the artist poignantly explores her Irish identity, her experience as a woman, and the inextricable grief embedded in this existence. The CMAT charm is not just exclusive to her songs; it’s carried into her performances on stage and in music videos. It’s dramatic and it’s theatrical because that is the nature of the life we live. After the success of “Running/Planning” and her viral hit “Take a Sexy Picture of Me,” her latest track “EURO-COUNTRY” is a consoling, vulnerable lament.
