Album reviews: You’ll be Crazymad for CMAT’s charming second album

POP, CMAT, Crazymad, For Me (AWAL Recordings)

What are we going to do about Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson? Just like the wannabe nun in The Sound of Music, she arrived with a bunch of ideas and notions, initially confused those around her, and then through a mixture of sleight-of-hand social commentary, an abundance of love and a series of very catchy tunes, clawed her way to acceptance and respectability. The evidence was there for all to hear on her 2022 debut, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead (“her brain salad music is fantastical,” noted Mojo magazine), but some were blindsided by its occasional off-beam appeal.