It would be easy to lump Morgan Wade into the column marked “the latest potential new country star” (and to be fair, it is a couple of weeks since anything came out that deserved that epithet) but it isn’t quite true, or indeed fair.
She nails it herself on “Don’t Cry” – a track that comes towards the middle of “Reckless” – the first line is a thing of beauty: “I’ll always be my own worst critic” she muses. “the world exists and I am just in it”. Then the chorus: “don’t cry, at some point, your hero must die” then the pay off line: “it’s a beautiful thing to fall apart.”
There aren’t many people who do this type of raw bravery on their debut album, but then, that comes back to the original point: Morgan Wade isn’t your normal artist. For one thing she’s 26. Began singing when she was 19, then suffered addiction and mental health issues and has been sober for four years.
She’s always written songs, she says, but always assumed that they were only hers. I did that too when I was a kid. “Birds In The Wood” written by the four year old me wasn’t great, looking back, and “daddy bird” probably didn’t lay an egg as it claimed, but the stuff I wrote for my mates band was better 15 years or so later.
The difference, though, with me and Morgan (first names are ok here, because you feel like you know her after a couple of listens) is that she has talent, a gift, if you will for laying herself bare, but making it accessible.
You find yourself wondering who the songs are about (if they are made up, it doesn’t sound like it) who is the older guy in “Wilder Days” for example, and how such words can be wrapped up in a song who’s chorus is made for the Top 40.
The sound, too. That’s kind of country, but way more broad than that. There’s a bit of The Stereophonics in the opener, and there’s Americana singers from the back roads that would kill for “Matches And Metaphors”.
What is interesting about “Reckless” is that it is sexually charged, without being explicit at all, and even the ones that aren’t like, the one that is arguably the best “Other Side”, seems to be exorcising some demons.
Her voice too, which she claims in interviews, she isn’t keen on, is perfect for this. Broken, yet sweet, and incredibly expressive. These songs wouldn’t sound as good delivered with one of those “conventional country” tones.
Musically, too, there’s a lot going on. To that end, Sadler Vaden, Jason Isbell’s guitarist, does a mighty job producing, as this moves quickly from the fragile “Mend” (“I am not much of anything, you will always be everything” perhaps underlines the struggles here) to the overtly pop stylings of “Last Cigarette” – and if one was going to make Wade a star its this one- in the blink of an eye.
It feels that her more natural habitat is the battered old acoustic guitar that she plays on “Take Me Away”, although the dark pulse of the title track is so superbly done, maybe we are dealing with an artist who can be anything she wants.
The most “country” is the old school shuffle of “Northern Air”, and the sense of longing is palpable for the native Virginian, and as it ends with the magnificent acoustic led “Met You”, its tempting to think of it as a concept record in that, the person she’s with at the start is the person she’s reminiscing about at the end who she “didn’t get the ring” off, but did “get your name all over my skin”.
She mentions her tattoos a few times in the words of these songs, but as much as the words on her body clearly represent her struggles and triumphs, then so does the album. “Reckless” is deceptively dark and deep, and for all the country tinges, with the abrupt ending, as she is elsewhere, Morgan Wade is making very much a personal statement.
Rating 9/10
