The last time I wrote about Morgan Wade, we discussed her fraying relationship with country music throughout Psychopath and Obsessed. Since her cutting debut, her wistful bittersweetness has been as poignant as ever, but there was an infectious pointedness that those subsequent records missed. Too often, the most emotionally charged moments felt directionless and mellow, and there wasn’t enough tempo to sell these records on their pop sensibilities.
Going into her fourth full-length LP, I prescribed a more focused approach, with some distance between herself and country music, which seemed increasingly less inspiring and inviting toward our moody Virginian. The Party Is Over (recovered) definitely does some of that, but there’s another X factor in play as well; Morgan Wade reclaims a lot of her spunk and tragic charisma by cutting older tracks that predated her outstanding debut. As a fan, it’s fair to wonder why revisiting her cutting room scraps from over half a decade ago yielded her best work in nearly as long. However, if retracing her steps was what it took to reignite Wade’s creative spark and yield a more balanced, vibrant body of work than we’re used to hearing from her, then who am I to complain?
There aren’t many hooks on The Party Is Over (recovered) that hit quite as hard as “Wilder Days,” “Northern Air,” or “Last Cigarette,” but it rewards a lot of our hopes for a more memorable successor to Reckless. Had Morgan Wade released this project immediately after Reckless, it might’ve felt a bit toothless. In 2025, this was just what fans needed to hear.
Just as on Obsessed, Sadler Vaden’s presence in the producer’s chair is missed without the polished shimmer he brought to Wade’s first two albums. Even so, her bandleader, Clint Wells, is leaning into his own strengths as a creative director. Befitting of the phase of Wade’s life it was written in, the lyrical content of this record is mostly dominated by broken relationships, fractured trust, and general depravity, which lends itself to fuzzy bass and ambient acoustics. The lovesick longing of the Psychopath lent itself well to Sadler Vaden’s dense, pop-infused layering, but for a record like this, which sees Wade making sense of her darker days, these songs rarely feel incomplete.
“High In Your Apartment” is the best example of this dingy comfort zone, and indeed it’s probably the best song on the album. In a scuzzy dirge fit for a Requiem For a Dream drug montage, Morgan Wade paints a dim picture of winter in the city, drowning with a sick feeling of forelorn aimlessness, as she and her lover waste their days away in a tormented cycle of addiction. From the grungy power chords to Wade’s vivid description, every element here connects to sell you on this sour portrait.
In another welcome return to form, we find Morgan Wade taking herself a bit less seriously. Whether it’s the wry kiss-off “Let Us Down” or the gleeful dive bar romp “Candy From Strangers,” you get the sense on this record that she’s open to having a good time when the mood permits. Just the sheer diversity of content across The Party Is Over (recovered) puts it well above its predecessors. As we discussed back in February, not every risk has to work, but Morgan Wade was very much in a place where she needed to take a few.
Even so, the back half of the album still has more fat than you would like. Together, the limp one-two punch of “Parking Garage” and “Song You Won’t Remember” combine for nearly eight minutes of listless melancholy, redeemed only by the sizzling “High In Your Apartment” immediately after. In sum, you like the leaps of faith that Wade and Wells take, but you just wish there were more of them.
It’s hard to say what this spells for Morgan Wade’s future, since the branding is so confusing. Since these songs were written quite some time ago, it feels presumptuous to say that this album is in any way indicative of her future plans. As she wraps up her summer tour with Shinedown and Bush, that rock album we speculated on earlier this year may yet come to fruition.
For now, we can only judge The Party Is Over (uncovered) for what it is. You wish the record were a bit less up and down, but with a few standout gems carrying the track list, it’s not a bad offering. The hope is that this album can be a starting place for a new creative direction, where Wade feels comfortable rocking out, but isn’t afraid to mix in some twang every now and then. The key is to avoid the wastelandic mono-genre singer-songwriter lane that’s been her kryptonite in the post-Sadler Vaden era of her career.
One way or the other, her fourth LP is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, and it gives you some hope that Morgan Wade can still impress.
