Ashley McBryde’s Wild Sets Her (and You) Free
As an avid music lover, I’ve always said that truth and honesty is at the top of my list of what I want in a song, particularly in country music. I’m no music virtuoso; I can’t always tell the difference between chord progressions or even what instrument that an artist is using to get their point across. I’m not somebody that fully gets the technical side of the music that I love, but I do get the emotional aspect of it. I can tell you what emotions the artist is trying to express to you or give you the moments that make a song HIT you right in the chest.
And let me tell you, Ashley McBryde’s fifth studio album Wild (released May 8, 2026) is a record that takes you on a journey, one without an ending. Or more accurate, one where she is letting you, the listener, decide what the ending is.
I’ve been listening to podcasts and interviews with McBryde and on Apple Music’s “The Kelleigh Bannen Show”, she said 2 things that I think encapsulates the entire project:
“The fear of not being seen turns into the fear of being seen”
“Singing songs like ‘Lines in the Carpet’ is tough, not scary but singing a song like ‘Hand Me Downs’ is tough and scary”
There’s a beautiful duality all over this record when it comes to emotion. The themes of this record center on her childhood in her church and home as well as being an adult in recovery (as she is now 4 years sober). This album is heavy as it is freeing. There’s no beating around the bush here. She sits in the uncomfortableness, the anger, the sadness, and even the hope that comes with being free of some of the demons that you were taught to grow up with. It’s brilliant and coherent and downright brutally honest. Every single track puts you in a place that you can recognize or connect with, no matter the subject matter.
Immediately from the starting track ‘Rattlesnake Preacher’, you feel the intensity of what is coming to life here. You may not have grown up in the Church, but you can feel the pride of passing things down the family line. Songs like “Arkansas Mud” and “Water in the River” are muddy (no pun intended), providing the perfect atmosphere for someone who has lived through their mistakes. Meanwhile, “Creosote” sounds like standing on a train car as it cuts across the South, and the title track ‘Wild’ feels like wandering through a field of flowers, finally free.
From start to finish, this album is like a therapy session and I want to talk about 3 specific tracks that in any given year would be my choice to be Song of the Year. To get all of them on one record is saying a lot in itself.
“Bottle Tells Me So”
When this song was released as a pre-release song for the album, I didn’t know quite where this record was going but as soon as I heard it, the dots connected and it did what a pre-release song does and got me excited for the full album. It’s a little bit weird and different to say that I was excited about a song that discusses alcoholism so honestly.
“Bottle Tells Me So” tells the journey of waking up after a long night of drinking and dealing with the repercussions of the decisions you made. The internal monologue of "If I can find my phone, I bet I need to apologize/The only problem is I can’t remember to who or why” is powerful because it shows the regret, the shame, the remorse that the narrator feels. It’s coming to terms saying that you have a problem and that one problem keeps creating other problems in your life that need to be dealt with. The problem doesn’t have to be a bottle. It could be pills, it could be anxiety or depression, it could be anything and that is what is so brilliant about the song. It says “It’s either me or the problem. What (or who) do I choose?”
“Behind Bars”
If “Bottle Tells Me So” was coming to terms with your problem, “Behind Bars” is coming to terms with how you got there in the first place AND what happens afterwards when you choose you. It’s a bit tongue in cheek as the lyrics make references to being in jail or being on a barstool, but there’s a certain type of wisdom in this track that you could probably only get by shooting the bull on a barstool. In the song, McBryde is saying all these things that she learned while being in a bar, re-living all the life she’s experienced in these places. The most interesting parts of the song involves her saying “It ain’t as bad as you might think” and “I got friends that ain’t out yet/and I stop by and see them now and then”. On one hand, there are a lot of negative thoughts people assume about bars, but she is effectively saying “I’ve lived a lot of life that got me to this place I’m at and I’ve enjoyed the ride” while simultaneously saying “I’m not going to leave those that haven’t chose the same path I did.”.
In one of her interviews, McBryde talked about how she’s not the one that is going to preach about sobriety and telling people how they should go about it (if they choose to). What she hopes comes from telling her recovery journey is that those who are in that space of making the hard choice to feel a little less alone and know somebody out there has made that tough choice. It’s the least judgmental way of letting someone know that they can do the hard things in life, whatever that might be.
“Hand Me Downs”
Man. I wasn’t ready for this one and if you’ve read through this and haven’t listened to the album, I’d suggest at the very least you listen to this song right now.
When I listened to “Hand Me Downs” for the first time, it was a shin-kicker and it is the crux of the entire album. I went into this one blind, assuming it would be a nostalgic trip through the physical hand-me-downs and family relics we all inherit, and while that’s the surface, it’s really about those emotional heirlooms. It’s the heavy stuff you carry in your bones without ever asking for it, like the anger and pride you learn from your father or how your mother taught you how to hide sadness. The frustration she has because “that ain’t the kind of heirloom that I wanted/oh, and don’t it make me think I’m only made of broken things that I can’t stand” is just incredible. She’s unpacking the trauma and the baggage of growing up feeling like she wasn’t good enough or that she was nothing special. The quote about “The fear of not being seen turns into the fear of being seen” earlier directly comes from this song.
By the end of the song, she is stating that if she has only one job in life, it’s to break the generational cycle of trauma she’s endured. It’s no question, it’s an answer. She doesn’t care how long it’s going to take or if she doesn’t understand why she feels the way she does, she’s going to going to get a handle on herself. Or, at the very minimum leave something better behind. In short, she’s not leaving any hand me down trauma heirlooms at this estate sale.
It’s beautiful and tough. She was right that singing it would be scary, because even listening to it made me afraid of unpacking a little of my own childhood.
I’ve been a massive fan of Ashley McBryde since her debut album Girl Going Nowhere in 2018. Every album she drops is a standout and each one builds on the last. She’s full of beautiful ballads and rock-infused tracks about bad decisions and it’s that wide array of tunes that truly sets her apart in the country music world. Even on this record, it’s a complete, not just the beginning and middle. Ending with a track like “Ten to Midnight” where she’s telling a friend (or maybe herself, like the video suggests) that she can only do so much to help, but you have to want it for yourself is a refreshing way to dole out some self-accountability.
What Ashley has done here with Wild is such a fantastic journey and a 40 minute therapy session. They say country music is cheaper than a shrink, but there’s no telling how many people Ashley McBryde will help with this album.
And as somebody who has struggled with mental health and dealt with breaking his own generational trauma cycle, this one is worth getting all up in your feels about.
As usual, leave a comment or hit me up on social media. It's@marty_kurtz on X/Twitter.
