CMAT: Euro-Country (AWAL)
Verdict: Potent and pithy
Fans of Jamie Oliver should probably approach the third studio album by Irish singer CMAT with some caution. Her creative fires stoked by an irrational dislike of the award-winning celebrity chef, the Dublin-born star sings about Oliver, and his partnership with Shell motorway service stations, on a track called The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station.
‘I needed deli, but God I hate him,’ she grumbles, against a catchy electronic backdrop. ‘That man should not have his face on posters.’
Before devotees of The Naked Chef have the time to choke on their courgette carbonara, the 29-year-old turns the tables on her own seemingly gratuitous lack of grace. ‘The man’s got kids, and they wouldn’t like this,’ she reminds herself.
It’s a typical sleight of hand from the artist born Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, who regularly uses cutting humour to explore deeper emotional truths about fame, self-esteem, her homeland and the perils of being a woman in music. In calling her latest album Euro-Country, she acknowledges her love of line-dancing, thigh-slapping American country, but her music is essentially great pop that makes the most of her powerful, vaulting voice.
Just a Euro-Country girl: Dublin’s CMAT performing in Copenhagen earlier this month. The singer – real name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – was one of the breakout stars at Glastonbury
CMAT (it’s pronounced C-Mat) was a significant contributor on Blossoms’ chart-topping 2024 album Gary, and there’s a little of the Stockport band’s breezy touch here.
Working with long-term collaborator Oli Deakin, a Brooklyn-based Brit, she’s broadening her palette to encompass synths, acoustic strumming and, on the title track, U2-style atmospherics.
She was one of the breakout stars of this year’s Glastonbury, but it was a less savoury festival experience that was the inspiration behind one of the album’s best songs. Last year, the BBC was forced to turn off its Instagram comments section after body-shaming remarks were posted about CMAT’s performance at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Luton, and she calls her online critics out forcefully on Take A Sexy Picture Of Me, again using humour to make her point.
Taking on the trolls: CMAT was subjected to body-shaming after appearing at the BBC’s Big Weekend in Luton last year. She addresses the matter on new track Take A Sexy Picture Of Me
Funny girl: CMAT often uses humour in her lyrics. Her new album, Euro-Country, contains one track called The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station, in which she lambastes the celebrity chef
Tackling other topics, the title track and Ready examine the lack of economic opportunity for young people in Ireland — ‘I got a little too good at waiting for adventure,’ she sings on the latter — while her gaze turns inwards on Coronation Street, a simple acoustic ballad on which she claims ‘everyone is having fun, except for me’.
Despite CMAT’s introspection, Euro-Country isn’t gloomy. Her pithy, self-deprecating streak is never far from the surface, and Deakin’s arrangements are lively, with When A Good Man Cries and Tree Six Foive emphasising her enduring affinity with country music. ‘God bless my mouth and ginger mop,’ she sings on Running/Planning. It’s a mop I predict we’ll be seeing a lot more of.
CMAT starts a tour on October 2 at Brixton Academy, London (ticketmaster.co.uk).
WOLF ALICE: The Clearing (Columbia)
Verdict: Rockers strike a mellow note
Wolf Alice came of age on 2021’s Blue Weekend, a chart-topping album of crunching rock and Coldplay-like ballads that provided the perfect pick-me-up as the country emerged from lockdown. It was my record of that year, and I wasn’t the only one impressed: the North London guitar band won the BRIT Award for best British group the following year.
The Clearing is cut from different cloth, with the band — Ellie Rowsell, Joff Oddie, Theo Ellis and Joel Amey — seemingly going through a quarter-life crisis as they move through their early 30s. Made in California with Adele’s producer Greg Kurstin, the new album spurns noisy guitars in favour of Seventies-style soft rock. It’s elegant and melodic, but generally lacks the band’s customary bite.
Opening track Thorns, a piano-led ballad built around electric piano and strings, sets the tone, and Just Two Girls sees producer Kurstin adding Burt Bacharach-like touches as Rowsell sings dreamily about the importance of good female friends: ‘Tiny epiphanies when she’s drinking with me… we’re just two girls at the bar, like two kids in the park.’
Change of tune: Wolf Alice, fronted by Ellie Rowsell (with guitarist Joff Oddie), have toned down their raw rock on latest album The Clearing, in favour of a softer Seventies sound
The quartet have cited two key touchstones in the run-up to this release, claiming they were inspired by The Beatles in Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary and Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac.
But 1970’s Let It Be (The Beatles LP chronicled in the Jackson film) and 1977’s Rumours were products of specific circumstances, with a hard-won magic that can’t be recreated simply by emulating old, analogue sounds.
To their credit, Wolf Alice avoid slipping into 1970s pastiche. The country-ish Leaning Against The Wall gets experimental as it progresses. On piano lullaby Play It Out, Rowsell, 33, opens up as she ponders the possibility of motherhood while acknowledging she may never have children: ‘When my body can no longer make a mother of me, will I change my notion of time?’ she asks.
If there are slim pickings here for fans seeking the howling guitars of old, the band occasionally crank up the volume. Bloom Baby Bloom puts the onus on Ellie’s voice, as she sings of being a woman in the male-dominated world of rock (‘I’m so sick and tired of trying to play it hard… I just am who I am’), while White Horses is a love letter to drummer Joel Amey’s family roots in Saint Helena. Both songs should help in keeping original fans on board on what is otherwise a transitional album from one of Britain’s best bands.
Wolf Alice start their tour at AO Arena, Manchester, on November 28 (gigsandtours.com).
BEST OF THE NEW RELEASES
MARGO PRICE Hard Headed Woman (Loma Vista)
Having thrown herself into psychedelic rock on 2023’s Strays, the Illinois singer reconnects with her country roots by recording in her adopted hometown of Nashville for the first time. Price portrays a world of dive-bars, honky-tonks, rusty trucks and rodeos — and that’s just one song, the bluesy Don’t Wake Me Up. She also namechecks Lucinda Williams, on romantic ballad Close To You, and adds funky guitar and horns on George Jones cover I Just Don’t Give a Damn.
ADRIAN THRILLS
JEHNNY BETH: You Heartbreaker, You (Fiction)
The former Savages frontwoman wanted her second solo album to sound like a punk record, so the London-based French musician holds nothing back. You Heartbreaker, You is raucous, and not for faint-hearted, but Beth delivers with passion, precision and power, never losing her musical focus. ‘We talk like we’re Scarlett Johansson in a film,’ she sings on Reality, mixing rock with rap, while there are echoes of Iggy Pop in the sinister sounding Broken Rib.
A.T.
ROSSINI: Petite Messe Solennelle (CPO)
This adorable Mass was Rossini’s last large-scale work — ‘Petite’ applies to the small choir and modest accompaniment.
The composer asked for two pianos and a harmonium: conductor Edzard Burchards has left out the second piano, which mostly doubles the chorus of 14 handpicked singers.
Playing a period Erard piano with a distinctives timbre, Tobias Koch is a veritable tower of strength; and a harmonium in excellent shape has been found for Christian Gerharz.
Four soloists are required, led by the lovely soprano Dorothee Mields; tenor Tobias Hunger does pretty well in the ‘Domine Deus’, first recorded by Caruso, no less.
The Rheinische Kantorei sing with lovely tone and the Cologne Radio recording, made at the Knechtsteden Early Music Festival, is atmospheric; but 82 minutes means two CDs.
TULLY POTTER
BEATRICE RANA: Bach Keyboard Concertos (Warner)
Bach’s keyboard Concertos go well on the piano, as long as you can find a player like Italian dazzler Beatrice Rana.
Her fingerwork is exceptional in the four Concertos she has chosen and it seems to me that everyone’s favourite D minor, BWV 1052, needs the tonal variety of her Steinway D.
She meshes nicely with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, led by the veteran Scottish violinist Candida Thompson, and they are beautifully recorded at Hilversum Radio Music Centre.
Rana tells us she played the F minor Concerto for her first orchestral concert, aged nine, and it makes a strong impression, as does the E major with a Siciliano slow movement.
The D major was based by Bach on his E major Violin Concerto but it works perfectly on the piano. All in all, this is another triumph for a star of the Italian piano tradition.
T.P.
