The debut album of rising country superstar John Morgan drops tomorrow, at the time of writing, and hype is pretty high! I have to say I somehow haven’t heard any of his stuff yet, but have heard the name around a lot, so when we got this emailed to us I knew I had to check it out. Join me as we listen to the potential future of country music!
The album opening on vocals and a dirty guitar chord progression was awesome. It immediately gives off Elvie Shane vibes which, for anyone who read our stuff last year, I’m a huge fan of! It cleans up for the verse, building up perfectly into a great, catchy-as-anything chorus. There’s definitely a roughneck and rock edge to it, it’s certainly not as polished as most mainstream country these days, but it’s so well written it would still do fantastically on the radio. Heck, we even get an awesome little bluesy guitar solo tucked away in the middle. It’s a fantastic opening song that sets the tone for the rest of the album perfectly, and was a great introduction to him for me!
‘Long Ride Home’ slows things down into much more of a modern-sounding, radio-country ballad. However, the rasp in John’s vocals still gives it an interesting, unique edge. It again all builds to a MASSIVE, stadium-filling chorus, one that does bring back that rock feel a bit. Plus, the lyrics are pretty great, packed full of emotion! It’s a simple song structure and your typical country ballad, but is written and performed to perfection by John. The album is two for two so far!
Another ballad-ish song follows with ‘Friends like That’, but the duet nature of the track thanks to it also featuring the legend Jason Aldean is awesome and different. And while slower, it does feel like a combination of the previous two songs in terms of sound. As per, it’s a slower verse that builds perfectly into a big, infectiously catchy chorus, the instrumentation behind it also adding a lot! I love the harmonies in the second verse from Aldeen coming in and John helping out. Their voices work very well together. The lyrics, while sombre, are also pretty well written and fun, in a cliche country kinda way. It’s another standard country affair, but done so well and is another great, hard-not-to-love song! It seems like it’s already a big deal of a track, and rightfully so!
Songs like ‘One More Sunset’, ‘She’ll Always Be’ ‘Kid Myself’ and the title track are all more great, slower ballads. All are fantastic, emotion-packed songs performed perfectly by John. None of them do anything essentially new or special, but they don’t have to, they’re just fantastic songs, and fit perfectly in with the rest of the album! The latter in fact is another huge highlight of the album, and a song that easily makes our playlist. The only reason I’ve grouped them together is so that I don’t repeat myself and gush to much!
‘I Know Better’, while still slightly slower, feels more upbeat and rockier than the aforementioned songs. The chorus is definitely rocky too, the guitars being almost as big of a focus as the vocals. It’s still a radio-friendly song, and is catchy as anything, but definitely sets itself apart from a lot out there currently. And it’s a pretty great love song. It’s yet another big highlight on an album chocked full of them!
The same sort of vibe is felt through ‘Crickets’, it again having a very up-beat feel to it. This is the second time I’ve compared a country band to them on this site, but it does give just slight Jonas Brothers vibes. That’s hardly a bad thing, they’re putting out good music these days! Of course, alongside artists like Parmalee and even a hint of Redferrin. It’s catchy as anything and one of my favourite songs on the album, honestly. It’s so well put together and performed. Another to easily make it onto our playlist!
The final three songs on the album are pretty standard country songs, and exactly what you’d expect from this point in the album. ‘Without ‘Em’ was giving me Locash vibes in all the best ways. Meanwhile, the closer has a bit of Brothers Osborne in its guitaring, and is probably my favourite of the trio. Heck, that outro is phenomenal. It’s a damn good way to close out the album, emotional yet a lot of fun to listen to! However, none of the three are bad songs by any stretch. I’d recommend them just as much as I would any other track on the album!
Overall: This is a really great country album, and an even better debut release! It has a fantastic mix of acoustic ballads, rockier stuff and more pop-leaning numbers, and there isn’t a single bad song on the album. John has an incredibly big future ahead of him that is already starting to come to fruition thanks to his collaboration with Aldean. I’d recommend this to any country fan out there, and he’s certainly on my radar moving forward!
The Score: 8/10