Reckless – the debut album by Morgan Wade is a fiery debut that defies genres – a startling body of work that is strong from start to conclusion.
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Not since Ashley McBryde’s phenomenal debut record Girl Goin’ Nowhere have we been so caught off guard by a debut record. Today, singer/songwriter Morgan Wade releases her anticipated debut studio record Reckless and it is poised, genre-defying perfection. She’s created a heady sonic landscape within the record that allows her to merge and fuse genres together in a way that is powerfully unique, combined with her extraordinary and poignant vocal tone. Wade’s vocal is raspy, rock-tinged bliss and is showcased throughout, front and centre, lacing throughout powerful and complicated lyrics that strike close to home – covering heavy topics that feel incredibly human. Credit to her producer, Sadler Vaden, who has created a broad and diverse soundscape that sits outside the current commercial Nashville sound, given its rock-edged and grittier sound.
The record opens with rock ballad ‘Wilder Days’ – a wistful track, wishing to have met a lover in ‘wilder days.’ ‘I wish I’d known you in your wilder days / Now here we go, you’ve got me falling in love again / You’ve got a secret and I want to keep it.’ It’s a rip-roaring, achingly wistful track, with a sentiment carried into later track ‘Other Side’ – a nostalgic trip down romantic memory lane. ‘These days when I look back, I just have to laugh. / They all said that you and I would never last. / I’ve made my share of mistakes and we left that in the past / These days when I look back, I just have to laugh.’ In the track, Wade shakes and dances out the toxins of the past, moving to the ‘other side’ of love, professing her ‘gypsy heart.’ It’s the kind of track that moves with abandon, rife with percussion that seems to take motifs from Fleetwood Mac in their heyday.
On ‘Matches and Metaphors,’ Wade’s vocal possesses a more fragile tone that wouldn’t be out of place in 70s rock ballads. In the track, Wade yearns not to care, whilst making it intensely clear that she does in her speech to a lover, ‘I wrote you a letter, I threw it in the trash. / Got it out, lit it with a match. I’m not gonna tell you how I feel, / It’s overrated but damn, it’s real.’ There’s a real vulnerability in her lyrics that bares her soul to the world, as is the case in later track ‘Mend,’ where Wade embraces her flaws and brokenness. There’s something so incredibly raw and real about the straightforward motif throughout the record – ‘I’m so broken. / I hope you can mend me’ that is both devastating and brave in equal measure. Similarly vulnerable is later track, ‘Take Me Away,’ where Wade lays her heart on the line. ‘I’m so tired of being alone… I want to feel something. / Take me away.’ The most stunning case of this vulnerability is in the final track of the record, ‘Met You,’ a quieter, stripped-back track in which Wade sings, ‘You were right and you left and I’m wondering what / The hell I should do. / I’d seen it all, or so I thought, / Until I met you.’ It’s a quieter, plaintive and soul-destroying track that shows Wade’s full potential.
‘Don’t Cry’ is the closest to a straight rock track that you’ll get on Reckless. It’s a powerful track, putting Wade’s raspy and unique vocal at centre stage, embracing the dark side of hard times. Similarly, ‘Reckless’ seethes with a quiet bitterness at moving on and being left cold – a quieter, angrier track about the results of being left and proffers another side at Wade’s stunning vocal – as does, ‘Northern Air,’ where Wade ponders whether her ex-lover thinks of her. Taking an incredibly different sonic note, ‘Last Cigarette’ deals with the addictive qualities of love. ‘I want you one last time. / Another hit to ease my mind. / I don’t want you to be over yet, / Won’t you be my last cigarette?’
The record is both compelling and intoxicating, seamlessly fusing country and rock together – a record that is immensely layered, complicated and palatable. Wade’s vocal range is immense on the record and her vocal shines throughout – a devastating and human record that positions Wade as one to watch in the coming years.
