Tears Over Beers: Morgan Wade's 'Reckless' Modern Country Masterpiece

I've been looking for some piece of mind

It’s very easy to sucker me into listening to an album. While I couldn’t tell you the exact science of making me listen to a record based solely on the cover, there are definite things that I like in album covers: pictures of houses, landscapes (both with people and without), unique symbols in the center, furniture, bright colors, and people with tattoos.

When I see people with tattoos on the album covers, I assume that they’re either a punk band, metal band, or a Soundcloud rapper. I’m well aware that people from all walks of life can have tattoos, but this is the way I’ve been conditioned. That being said, I assumed Morgan Wade’s debut album Reckless was going to be a punk record when it showed up alongside other new releases on Apple Music on March 19.

I was pleasantly surprised by an incredibly revealing country record that reminded me both of the lonely outlaws I like and the modern voices that I feel are also becoming defining parts of the country-canon. There are also traces of Americana-pop-punk (think: The Gaslight Anthem, The Menzingers) scattered throughout her confessional new album.

Part of the reason Wade seems to remind me of The Menzingers is obvious: her opening song “Wilder Days” has similar lyrical motifs to the After the Party track “Your Wild Years.” Yet, Wade captures this sense of eternal romance. Wouldn’t it be nice to have known the person you love through all the crazy “wilder days?”

You said you hate the smell of cigarette smoke

You only use to smoke when you drank

When you lived in Chicago

Unsure where the wind blows

I wish I'd known you in your wilder days

There’s a lot of dark romance throughout Reckless. As if love isn’t so much something to take comfort in but rather a necessary resource for sustenance. “Other Side” is a sprawling Bonnie & Clyde style story about sticking it out and showing your ugly truths to someone you adore. And even though love gets grisly “like Hemingway and Hadley” (in “Met You”), this does feel like a record hellbent on staying together. Even songs like “Matches and Metaphors” narrate sex (albeit somewhat erotically) as something that will save the relationship. Even “Last Cigarette” likens meeting the perfect partner to finally giving up smoking.

Part of why Reckless feels to work so well is that its a heart-on-the-sleeve record with gritty lyrics that show that even if things are going good, they’re never as well as they seem, like in “Don’t Cry,” which works as both a song about grief/mourning and of killing your idols. Despite the often dark lyrics, the production is crisp and clean. Lyrics aside, there are plenty of moments that wouldn’t sound totally out of line on a Chris Stapleton record.

I'll always be my own worst critic

And I hate to suffocate between something I love

Something I hate

If I don't know who I am

How can I ever give a damn?

Reckless is an album that offers a lot of comfort in darkness. The middle track “Mend,” which Wade said was the only song that she wrote before getting sober, feels like the record’s thesis statement: I can get through this with you.

Despite appearing to mostly be a somewhat downtrodden toned album, Wade certainly has proven herself as someone who can write down-on-your-luck romantic love songs. While the first album may appear Reckless, she’s already shown that she has the laser focus of someone destined for greatness in the country world and likely crossing over to appeal to the punks and metalheads who need a solemn song every once in a while.