Psychopath by Morgan Wade

Leave it to Morgan Wade to name an album *Psychopath*. Its predecessor, 2021’s critically acclaimed *Reckless*, boasts a similarly evocative, un-Music Row title—one that nods both to Wade’s outsize persona and to her rejection of any mainstream model for country music success. Like contemporaries Lainey Wilson and Zach Bryan, Wade’s rise to stardom within the genre has been unorthodox—and hugely successful—thanks in large part to that willingness to ignore trends in favor of making music that feels true to her. As she did with *Reckless*, Wade once again taps Sadler Vaden of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit to produce the record, reprising the boundary-pushing chemistry that made *Reckless* such a hit. Vaden co-writes a number of tracks alongside Wade here too, as does a murderers’ row of Nashville’s finest writers, including Ashley Monroe, Natalie Hemby, Liz Rose, and Lori McKenna. Opening track “Domino,” a sideways rocker about finding respite in a steady love, sets a thematic and sonic tone for the record, its first line, “My roses are dead, all my pills are blue/The house is a wreck, my head is too,” encapsulating Wade’s ability to inject a clever turn of phrase with personality and pathos. Other highlights include “Losers Look Like Me,” a potent pairing of power pop and pop country that confronts the realities of adulthood with humor and humility, and closer “27 Club,” a starkly vulnerable meditation on fame and fast living that also includes one of the album’s most gutting lyrics: “I don’t know if I would call it luck, but I didn’t make the 27 Club/I’m 28, so y’all ain’t gotta dig my grave.”

The old rocker is full of crass lyrics and tiring machismo; Morgan Wade offends country purists; Victoria Monét should be no industry secret

7 / 10