Ashley Monroe
The Blade
Reviewed by: Lauren Rosier
Ashley Monroe rose to recognition from her duet with country megastar Blake Shelton on “Lonely Tonight”. She’s also 1/3 of the all-star female country group, Pistol Annies, with Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley.
On The Blade, Monroe opens the album with “On To Something Good”, a very catchy, country pop hit full of positivity. She sings “I can’t tell you how / Or where I’m headed now / But the windin’ of the road / Is steady in my soul / Feels like I’m comin’ home / …”
“Bombshell” is a highly emotional track about her cheating on her boyfriend, dropping a bomb and revealing to that it’s over and realizing that no time is a good time to do so. Beautiful, yet haunting and sad.
“I keep waiting till you’re sleeping / you never hear me leaving / go without saying a word / I could write it in a letter / who knows it could make it worse / save it for a rainy day / baby either way / I’m damning us straight to us hell / Ten to three or half past nine / It’ll never be a good time / To drop a bombshell…”
The title track on Monroe’s first effort since 2011’s Like a Rose is about the effects of a breakup between a man and woman, how it can slice like a blade into millions of pieces for one individual and for the other their world is fine and has never been better.
Throughout the record she focuses on multiple different, yet familiar perspectives. Obstacles on “On To Something Good”, the girl who is dying to leave home on “Dixie”, and the sinner on “If the Devil Don’t Want Me.”
Overall, Monroe’s The Blade is a great effort on the way to becoming a country superstar.
Rating: Bad-Ass
