There’s a point, somewhere between last call and complete collapse, where the night stops feeling like freedom and starts looking like fallout. The Pretty Reckless lean hard into that moment on ‘When I Wake Up’, a track that doesn’t just flirt with chaos, it documents it in real time.
Stream ‘When I Wake Up’ HERE.
Directed by frontwoman Taylor Momsen alongside Chris Acosta, the video plays out as a first-person spiral through a night that refuses to land softly. Shot raw and unfiltered, it trades polish for proximity, pulling viewers into the blur of excess as it mutates from reckless abandon into something darker, more hollow. Familiar faces flicker in and out of the haze, including Momsen’s former Gossip Girl co-stars Jessica Szohr and Connor Paolo, alongside Pat Smear and Ilan Rubin, grounding the chaos in rock lineage as much as personal history.
It’s a sharp continuation of the band’s long-standing fascination with the edges of control. Since their debut Light Me Up, The Pretty Reckless have built a catalogue that thrives on tension, and on DEAR GOD, that tension feels less theatrical and more lived-in. The upcoming fifth studio album, due June 26, arrives already carrying weight: lead single ‘For I Am Death’ extended their run of chart dominance, while ‘When I Wake Up’ has landed as the most added track at US rock radio this week, a reminder that their grip on the format remains ironclad.
But what lingers most is Momsen’s framing of the track itself. This is not rock’n’roll mythology dressed up for effect. It’s a document of self-destruction, stripped of colour correction and narrative safety nets. The imperfections are the point. The high fades, the crash doesn’t.
With a new world tour on the horizon and DEAR GOD poised as their most unguarded record yet, The Pretty Reckless aren’t reinventing themselves so much as removing the final layer of varnish. What’s left is something bruised, volatile and uncomfortably clear-eyed.
