CMAT – Euro-Country
CMAT today releases her hotly anticipated and critically acclaimed new album, EURO-COUNTRY.
The multiple 5*-reviewed album is an aural tight-rope walk that balances big themes – re-evaluating where you come from; the impact of economics on a small country; the pressure of increased fame – with her most immediate songs to date. It follows a huge summer for the Irish star: from a “career making” Glastonbury Pyramid set via the ‘Woke Macarena’ viral TikTok trend to charting singles in UK & Ireland.
Coinciding with the release of the album, CMAT released new single “When A Good Man Cries” a truly unique slice of country pop and indie rock.
EURO-COUNTRY includes the previously released singles “Running/Planning”, “Take A Sexy Picture of Me”, “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station”, and “Euro-Country.”
Despite this being her third album, this fully-formed acronymic star feels like she’s been part of the cultural zeitgeist forever. EURO-COUNTRY follows 2023’s brilliant Crazymad, For Me – an album that propelled her to wider attention and garnered numerous accolades: including a BRITs Best International Artist nod; and ‘Best Album’ nominations from the Ivors; Mercury Prize and the Choice Music Prize in her native Ireland (an award she won for her debut, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead).
A relentless touring schedule with The Very Sexy CMAT Band has cemented her reputation as one of the best live acts around – alongside Glastonbury, 2025 highlights include Green Man, Primavera, Pukkelpop, NOS Alive and a run supporting Sam Fender in the UK. Her 2025 UK and Ireland headline run – including her first arena show in Dublin – is fully sold out. The fall will see a hotely anticipated US tour, with CMAT live shows from Sep 8 through Sep 21 playing Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, Nashville and more.
What has endeared fans to her heart-sore tunes and humour is Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson’s ability to combine contradictory themes and moods: wide-eye drama with self-deprecation; the fusion of country and pop, with even more influences stretching across decades and genres.
The new album – coming via AWAL Recordings – was recorded in New York and co-produced by long-time collaborator Oli Deakin and CMAT. EURO-COUNTRY tackles a number of big themes including personal reflections on economics, identity and grief.
“The album title works on three levels: the kind of country music I make; the fact that Ireland is a European country, a country run by the euro, and capitalism is one of the worst things to ever happen to us.
So I would consider this my most country record, as in, steeped in the traditions of country. But neither Oli [Deakin, Producer] or I wanted to make something that we’d heard before. If we know that the thing we’re doing already exists, we have to fight against it, and find a more interesting, more beautiful way of making it. So there’s slide guitar and fiddle playing, but to a lot of listeners it will sound not country, but it is! We were just trying to bend the barriers of it a bit.
And on a wider level, EURO-COUNTRY is the name I’ve given to the pain of the loss of community that has happened over the last twenty to thirty years. Nobody is hanging out anymore, nobody is talking to each other, nobody is living together anymore. The shape of life, not just family life, but adult life, has completely transformed from the way it was before the internet and gig economy and I feel like it’s so responsible for so much of the societal and mental health issues that are really drilling everyone under the age of 35 right now. It feels so individualistic. It feels like such a product of late capitalism. And I couldn’t get it out of my head.”
EURO-COUNTRY marks another step in the unstoppable rise of CMAT and cements her position as a generational songwriter.
TOUR DATES
Sep 8 Mon – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre
Sep 10 Wed – Englewood, CO – Gothic Theatre
Sep 12 Fri – Minneapolis, MI – Fine Line
Sep 13 Sat – Chicago, IL – Park West
Sep 15 Mon – Toronto, CA – The Concert Hall
Sep 17 Wed – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club
Sep 18 Thu – New York, NY – Webster Hall
Sep 20 Sat – Atlanta, GA – Shaky Knees
Sep 21 Sun – Nashville, TN – The Basement East
#cmatbaby