This is Dublin newcomer CMAT’s debut album, yet you would never think it. The confident lyrical eloquence and distinctively spellbinding vocals, with which she has strutted onto the scene, have a strength of identity that usually takes artists a good couple of albums to achieve. Even with the quirky sense of humour responsible for tracks like a lament about looking like a ‘Geography Teacher’ and a wish for ‘Peter Bogdanovich’ to leave his wife for her, CMAT - real name Ciara Mary Alice Thompson - demands to be taken seriously, and I bite. Listen for country-twanged pop made cool. LT

Out now on AWAL