Released: 2024
There is so much you can do to get a rise of country music that even playing it dead straight can seem white knuckle parody. For Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson however that was never an option, what with her being born in Dublin and never really seeing eye to eye with Nashville’s weighty trappings. Adopting the stage name CMAT and releasing songs dedicated to fast food outlets didn’t really help.
In the heartlands it’s a movement that’s experienced something of an identity crisis, but Thompson’s irreverent but heartfelt interpretation comes with lots of sidewink goodness and her debut album If My Wife New I’d Be Dead revealed a star not just in the making, but arguably already made.
Aw, Shoot in loftier terms could be described as this symbiosis, of artists generations down the line from Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn who love country’s feet-on-the-ground aesthetic but need to have it their way. More simply, it’s vulnerable, wide horizon pop that leaves the singer comfortably living in any world she wants to. You can tie your horse up over there if you want to.
The Voice Of Unreason 