CMAT

• If My Wife New I'd Be Dead [Cmatbaby, 2022] A
• Crazymad, for Me [Cmatbaby, 2023] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

If My Wife New I'd Be Dead [Cmatbaby, 2022]
Gifted with a high IQ, a wide-open sense of humor, and an exuberant plus-size soprano with no discernible corners in it, Dublinite Ciara Mary Alice Thompson recorded this debut album on her own and did quite well with it in Ireland, where a chorus that went "I'm gonna tell everybody I know that I'm moving to Nashville" was taken literally even after the woman who calls herself "the Mae West of wanting attention" scored her first hit with a song dubbed "Peter Bogdanovich." "Who needs god when I have Robbie Williams?" Ciara Mary Alice wants to know. Also, "Why do I love Philip Larkin?/He would have hated me." And by the way, "Where do they serve the Eucharist on Friday nights?" Thompson's soft consonants and welcoming timbre have so few parallels I find myself reminded of the long-gone howdjados of Melanie's "Brand New Key" and Todd Rundgren's "I Saw the Light" a lot more than of anybody's Music Row twang. So if you can grok why Nashville might not be a perfect fit for this dame, maybe you can also see why she might be a pretty good fit for you--assuming you're always in the market for nothing else like it and plenty catchy to boot. A

Crazymad, for Me [Cmatbaby, 2023]
Ciara Mary Alice Thompson's second album of original songs was recorded in Bergen, Norway except for one in Kingston, New York--not "California," where she threatens to flee in the opener, but not her native Dublin either. I'm on my way, she wants us to know. And while the songwriting isn't quite as strong as on last year's debut, she does well by a pervasive theme she shares with none other than album of the year favorite SZA: serial coitus, let's call it. Unlike SZA, whose vocals flex, keen, and murmur not as if but because sensuality is her default mode, CMAT's singing is leaner, cuter, and by no means shy about trying hard. But sometimes it seems as if every song finds her in bed with someone else, to less than no avail, with the title "I . . . Hate Who I Am When I'm Horny" a theme statement I wouldn't wish on people I like a lot less than I do her. "I'm sitting in an office paying 80 quid an hour to cry," she tells us. "It started ending our first week," she reckons. "No wrapped in a dressing gown, no curled on your couch," she laments. "Have fun, I'm done," she announces. "What's left for me but poetry/And getting really old?" she wonders. Most likely lots of things, I suspect. Really, girl, it's not over yet. A-