CMAT’S sophomore release, ‘Crazymad, For Me’ is a full-blown, distorted manic episode. Typically, high-concept pop rarely manages to balance absurd theatricality with genuine emotional devastation, but Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson builds a Americana/Western revenge opera out of twangy guitars, 80s synth-pop, and pure Irish melodrama. The core concept? Oh you know, just an older version of herself that invades a time machine to travel back to her twenties, desperately trying to prevent her younger self from starting the relationship that utterly ruined her life. What follows that is a 12-track exorcism of grief, horny self-loathing, and toxic nostalgia that sounds like Dolly Parton getting trapped inside an arcade game…

Backed by producer Matias Tellez, the album trades acoustic strumming for grand orchestral hooks, arena-sized choruses, and unapologetic camp cowboy tunes. It’s a loud, funny, and deeply unhinged record that I’ve been lucky enough to see play out live at The Roundhouse not long ago. And let me tell you, she is exactly how you’d expect: naughty, reckless, and an absolute powerhouse.

Also, a big “cracking” shoutout to her appearing at the BRITs with a dress cut so low at the back it was practically a public service announcement… craic for days?

Opening like a dusty Western score, California sets the time-travel coordinates straight into delusion. CMAT channels Spaghetti-Western theatricality over sweeping strings, laying down her thesis early: ‘what’s left for me but poetry and getting really old?’. It’s the sound of stepping out of a time machine onto scorching tarmac, desperate to outrun past mistakes. Her vocals bend from a breathy country-pop timbre into a towering chorus that feels like driving off a cliff in slow motion (‘I’m heading to California […] I’m milking what I can from this grief’). It’s an intro and grand prologue of pure escapism before the facade inevitably slips and she dramatically crashes out in the final chorus, spinning totally out of control.

In a shimmering slice of 80s-tinted indie-pop, Phone Me is driven by a chugging bassline and sparkly synth keys. Starting with a much sparser production, Thompson begs for toxic validation with irresistible melodrama: ‘phone me, baby phone me! I’m crazy but I’m never wrong […] does my affliction turn you on?’. Her vocals carry that signature tragi-comic wobble over an impossibly danceable groove with a lingering Western twinge, and lines like ‘just stick it in and quit the questioning’ make it the musical equivalent of a desperate 3am double-text.

Who else but our CMAT could transform a retired Manchester Football Club defender into a metaphor for existential romantic failure? Featuring guest banjos and backing vocals from Declan McKenna, Vincent Kompany swings with a playful folk-pop bounce while Thompson delivers hilarious breakdowns of mental collapse: ‘cut all my hair off trying to look like Vincent Kompany, tied it together so I could tape it to the wall’.

The rhythm of this one jumps around with quirky energy, backed by a jagged piano and a stinging bitterness in the lyrics, like ‘I was crazy back then and I’m crazy right now’. It builds and builds, self-deprecates, and intertwines with electric guitars before slowing down to a delicate piano playout. Divine.

In a short, sharp, and a dripping in self-aware irony kinda way, Such A Miranda acts as a mid-album interlude and hits hard. Stripping back the heavy production for an acoustic guitar and raw vocals, Thompson critiques the archetype of a neurotic, un-cool friend through a lens of biting pop-culture humor: “I was in Denmark, you told me you loved me… but not how it happened on Sex and the City’. It feels like listening to voice memos in the back of an Uber before it suddenly comes to a dramatic, unexpected stop. On a side note, her Irish accent shines so brightly here. There’s really something about that accent that makes anything completely completely authentic.

An absolute powerhouse where an acoustic ballad collides head-first with exploding arena-rock drums, Rent builds slowly around soft piano keys before escalating into a cathartic storm of screeching electric guitars and much more. Addressing the emotional squatters living rent-free in her head, Thompson pours out with lyrics like ‘I’d have died for you, but here’s the twist, I was loving something that didn’t exist’. Hmph.

The first chorus is muted and small, but the arrangement draws on dynamic tension as it expands with drums entering and an overwhelming wall of instrumentation spreads out like a panic attack happening in real time. It showcases CMAT’s extraordinary vocal range as she belts over a wall of sound with sheer grit. Underneath the campy jokes (‘I still can’t watch Spirited Away without thinking of you’), lies pure rock-and-roll grit, with Thompson repeating ‘I don’t know anything about you’ in a chanty ‘Come On Eileen’ style playout. My personal fave.

The album’s crown jewel comes from a sweeping, 5-minute baritone duet with John Grant. That’s right. Sounding like a 70s Fleetwood Mac B-side, Where Are Your Kids Tonight? is a track about bad decisions drenched in dramatic flair: ‘everything good falls apart and leaves me here’. Grant’s deep and velvety rumble grounds and harmonises gorgeously with CMAT’s high-flying twang as they search in the wreckage of the past. The outro consists of octaves climbing higher and higher as they echo ‘where are your kids tonight?’, and it’s a really massive, emotionally euphoric ballad. Imagine this playing in slow-mo as you walk away from a burning building.

Jumping back into bouncy country-pop territory, Can’t Make Up My Mind features bright organs and driving snare beats straight out of a classic Nashville session. Thompson is back to her humorous self (‘my gone fishing alibi, you won’t see me till Wednesday but I’m fine, no really, I’m fine’), and this cut leans into the total push/pull emotional paralysis throughout. Playful yodels and soulful belts throughout, I have to give a huge shoutout for the key change too. It completely elevates this one..

A slow-burning masterpiece that builds from a delicate arrangement into a massive, soul-crushing climax, Whatever’s Inconvenient deals with the exhausting burden of keeping the peace in a dying relationship, capturing the quiet crack before the dam breaks as she repeats ‘why do I fall in love and out of love again? […] whatever’s inconvenient’. Her voice feels heavy with exhaustion, played out over lush violin layers and vintage organ chords before it swells with almost an operatic intensity by the two-minute mark. It captures the exact moment before you crash out (‘I’m emptying shower gel by bottles every night’) and also how the quiet is no longer an option (‘my dirty heart in glycerine’). Award for the best line of the album goes to this track too. ‘I’d make you torso of the week if I still bought Heat magazine’ is pure poetry.

Brutally honest, hilarious, and deeply uncomfortable, I… Hate Who I Am When I’m Horny is Thompson at her unfiltered best. Built on a groove-heavy bass and retro piano stabs, the song turns private shame into a glorious anthem: ‘I text you at 2am calling your name, swimming in oceans of absolute shame’. While the title screams internet-age vulnerability, the track is a masterclass in hook-filled pop songwriting. When a love interest asks what she’s into, she naturally replies: ‘god, self-destruction and a Britney tune’, and it’s a sticky, relatable, and brilliant exorcism of late-night realisations. I feels like ripping down the Church of England with this one. (Sorry nuns!)

Stomping in gently, Torn Apart accelerates the pace with driving synth-programming and record-scratch-like percussion. Feeling like an emotional glitch, this is a rapid-fire sprint through the damage, shown through lines like ‘wish you were part of me, cause I need a family but here I am again on square one’. Thompson’s vocals are frantic and urgent here, backed by jagged guitar riffs, cymbal smashes, tambourines, and pulsing basslines. It bridges the gap between the album’s chaotic middle section and its final resolution. It’s coming…

Dramatically closing as an explosive, power-pop banger, Stay for Something is really designed to be screamed at the top of your lungs in a packed venue – which is exactly what I did at The Roundhouse with Fergus a few weeks back. Driven by crunchy guitars, huge synthesizers, and a soaring chorus, Thompson examines the absurdity of staying in a toxic loop (‘you were shredding, playing like a rock n roll star, holy, goddamn you were so annoying’).

Opening with a classic indie guitar riff, this one is produced to the absolute max. It’s the most “radio-ready” CMAT we’ve had so far, and her frantic ‘they tell me I should hate you, say you put me through it, Lord, I know I used to, but I just can’t do it’ radiates such pure and anthemic energy. Her voice is pure dynamite here. It’s the ultimate glossy climax.

But just when you think it’s all over, the album drops the curtain with a theatrical, string-drenched flourish. Feeling almost like a hidden bonus track, Have Fun! brings the narrative full circle (‘back to business and far away from you’), echoing the escapism promised on the album’s opener. Thompson offers a sarcastic, liberating farewell: ‘I went in time and time again, always pecking like a hen that isn’t fed […] so have fun cause I’m done’. And she self-critiques herself too: ‘huh, silly bitch, woo, you shoulda spent it on yourself’. It’s the sound of stepping out of the chaos and realising that while you can’t fix the past, you can certainly dance over the rubble. A fun, credit-like ending.

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This release, I feel, really solidifies CMAT as one of the most vital, inventive pop writers working today. Where other artists treat heartbreak with quiet, solemn reverence, she builds a neon-lit theme park out of her worst romantic decisions. By framing her emotional baggage through time travel and theatrical country-pop, she manages to make hyper-specific personal misery feel universal, hilarious, and deeply healing.

It’s an album that rewires your brain, forcing you to laugh at the very things that used to keep you up at night. Surviving your twenties is less about finding grace and more about laughing at your own catastrophic lack of boundaries. Really though, you come for the absurd concept and stay for the terrifyingly relatable human heart beating underneath all the rhinestones, banjos, and glitter. And if that’s what being “crazymad” sounds like, sign me up.