Country music is dead outside America…or is it. The Shires made history be securing the first ever top ten country album on the UK charts with their debut ‘Brave’ in 2015, and Ward Thomas did one better not long later when their sophomore album ‘Cartwheels’ went to number one making them the first country act to secure a number one album in the UK. It’s getting better.
The freshest talent that has a lot of buzz behind her at the moment is Northern Irish country singer and songwriter Catherine McGrath who, after two EPs and having toured with both Dan + Shay and The Shires, finally has a debut album out in the world after what seemed like a wait of forever.
My expectations were undoubtedly high, but I knew that providing the label give the production team a budget this album would deliver, and we could collectively add another name to the list of people flying the flag for country music outside the USA. Did it deliver and meet my expectations?
Well, yes and no. However much I would say I thoroughly enjoyed this album, I can’t help but think that it was also a missed opportunity, and that is almost always down to inconsistent production. I get that this is a debut album, but you would have thought that, with McGrath’s growing popularity and all, the label would want to capitalise with something better than this. As such, we get a very good album, but one where the wasted potential is blatant. I will use a lot of positive superlatives to describe this album, but there are looming issues that ultimately contribute to an album that is very good, but not quite great.
By far the most consistent part of this album is Catherine McGrath herself. Her voice is a natural fit for pop flavoured country with just enough unique rasp in her voice that make her stand out in comparison to other pop country singers, which almost makes me more frustrated with how her talent is misplaced across this album, and that takes us on nicely to discussing the production on this album which is mainly a mix of real and fake percussion and hazy synths blurring together otherwise likeable melodies with a hint of guitar and banjo sitting at the back of the mix that occasionally comes forward to remind you that this is a country album.
I should reiterate that this is not a deal breaker for me whatsoever, but even with that in mind there are still moments where I can't help but cringe just a little bit at some of these production choices. The synth fragment that adds nothing to the verse on 'Just In Case' might be the most blatant example, but what baffles me more is why there are skittering hi hat progressions carelessly crowbarred into the back of the mix on 'Talk Of This Town' and 'Wild' not contributing to any kind of groove or melody that sound like they've been imported off the latest mainstream hip hop hit rather than anything remotely resembling country.
Obviously you can't forget the clear abuse of thin programmed percussion on the verses of a lot of these songs, but when real drums come in on the chorus anyway, I'm left wondering what the point was in the fake percussion in the first place. I can tolerate this in pop country to an extent, but 'Lost In The Middle' is my personal limit. The song that attempts to worship country music for being her personal escape from her everyday routine, but even if it is very poppy country that McGrath intends to worship, the very least the production could do was inject the song with some unique country flavour beyond the stiff percussion and millennial whoops that turn up on this song.
It's not like 'Cinderella' is much better with how close that thin snap is layered to the front of the mix against hazy production that does not have the tune it needs to connect fully. 'Dodged A Bullet' suffers from similar problems. But, with those criticisms out of the way, I will give this album huge credit for one thing: the melodies. From a compositional perspective this album is kind of amazing even if the melodies are stiffer or more synthetic than they could be, but I can tolerate that to a large extent. The infectious guitar lead on 'Talk Of This Town', the choppy but no less catchy groove on 'The Edges', the more organic acoustic elements on 'Just In Case' and 'Good Goodbye', and, perhaps most impressively, how the rich strings arrangement balances perfectly with the piano on the closing ballad 'She'll Never Love You'.
These are all solid moments, don't get me wrong, but they are ultimately not where the majority of my interest in this album came from, that would be the songwriting, and it unquestionably saves this album. McGrath and her team of co writers may not be reinventing the wheel, a lot of these songs do rely on a fairly straightforward template after all, but then you dig into the details and discover a songwriter that's head and shoulders above so much of mainstream country. Sure, there are fairly straightforward love songs on this album like 'The Edges' and 'Don't Let Me Forget', but in the former case McGrath uses a cute puzzle metaphor that keeps the song memorable ('if life's a puzzle, you are the edges') and in the latter case she acknowledges that the relationship may be on the edge of extinction, but she just wants to make the most of the time they do have together, and, even if it ends soon, she wants to keep hold of the memories they made together; there's undoubtedly real dramatic pathos to that.
Then you get the lightweight love songs that coast by on breezy grooves and McGrath's natural charisma like 'Good At Love' where she's looking to break out of her comfort zone and take more risk with the guy in the relationship, and 'Just In Case' where despite realising that it's probably not the 'real thing', she still wants the guy to kiss her: if only for an escape.
McGrath is also not afraid to put complicated emotions on display and she's all to aware that that happy ever after that she seeks on songs like 'Good At Love' and 'Cinderella' does not always come. 'Thought It Was Gonna Be Me' is the most obvious example in this department as McGrath arrives at the party in her new dress thinking the guy of her dreams is waiting for her, only to realise that he's there with someone else. The way that McGrath is able to condense the complicated emotions of that single moment into a killer song shows her maturity as a songwriter. 'Wild' might be even better as McGrath finds herself with a heartbroken guy at a Coldplay show, but is frustrated at his unwillingness to commit post heartbreak. The fact that there is no direct reference to whether or not the two of them end up together and get that happy ever after is very powerful.
The breakup songs are similar in terms of the detail and well framed complex emotions that McGrath brings to the table. 'Dodged A Bullet' is a lesser cut from the album, but in terms of capturing the mingled mess of emotions that comes with feeling of coming out the other side of a breakup with lingering emotions, even if the guy was not all that good to her, you could do a lot worse, even if there's not a huge amount of detail about the relationship pre breakup or how they ended up together in the first place. Both 'Enough For You' and 'Good Goodbye' are much better songs, both about the breakup for all the right reasons, either because the guy does not treat her at all well and she's left wounding why she tried so hard to impress him in the first place ('Enough For You'), or because neither McGrath or her partner cared enough to begin with and both sides came out of the relationship all the stronger ('Good Goodbye').
But overall, your enjoyment of this album will mostly come down to whether or not you can tolerate overproduced pop country, but, whether you like it or not, we have certainly not seen the end of Catherine McGrath, and if this album is the introduction to country music that it could well end up being for so many people on this side of the Atlantic, it's a pretty solid introduction.
Rating: 3.5 / 5
Best Songs: 'The Edges', 'Thought It Was Gonna Be Me', 'Wild', 'Don't Let Me Forget', 'Good Goodbye'
Worst Songs: 'Dodged A Bullet', 'Lost In The Middle'
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