During the summer of 2022, 24-year-old musical multihyphenate Cate was experiencing what you might describe as a “chaos era.” On the cusp of the October release of her soaring country-pop EP Tell Me Things You Won’t Take Back – which, thanks to its blend of touching emotional honesty and earworm songcraft, now boasts over 30 million global streams – she was between apartments, travelling constantly for sessions and shows, and her dating life was, as she puts it with a side-eye, “rogue.”
Get Better, Cate’s most recent single, and the new songs coming up this year depart somewhat from Cate’s roots, forged as she grew up playing country music in Abbotsford, Canada – and take a running jump squarely into the pop arena, glistening with synths, strings, and choruses ready-made for big room singalongs. And while these sounds may be surprising for some listeners, they make perfect sense alongside Cate’s always whip-smart writing, the songs showcasing for the first time the huge scale of her ambition.
