Zach Bryan

explicit

Released on 25/08/2023 by Warner Records
Main artists: Zach Bryan
Genre: Country

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Less than two years ago, Zach Bryan was in the Navy. Seven months later, he was releasing the triple-album American Heartbreak and selling out arenas. Not that the CMA Awards noticed (bet they will this time). If there was any question as to how Bryan sees himself in the country genre, it's answered by his choice of collaborators on his fourth album: uneasy Nashville star Kacey Musgraves, Americana darlings The War and Treaty and Sierra Ferrell, and pop-folkies the Lumineers. There are none of the modern-day "outlaws" you might expect. Bryan—who calls himself a "Kerouac guy"—remains fiercely one of a kind even as he inspires a new wave of young men embracing pain. But what makes Bryan stand out is that he doesn't exploit or glorify his heartbreaks. On "East Side of Sorrow," he simply tells you what's going on—referencing his military history ("Eighteen years old, full of hate/ They shipped me off in a motorcade/ They said, 'Boy, you're gonna fight a war/ You don't even know what you're fighting for'"), presumably the death of his mother ("And I lost you in a waiting room … Doctor said he did all he could/ You were the last thing I had that was good") and the weariness of the music world ("Do you ever get tired of singin' songs/ Like all your pain is just another fuckin' sing along?"). He finds reasons to get up in the morning: the sun, God, his musical heroes Turnpike Troubadours. Indeed, Oklahoma's Red Dirt scene is in his blood, and there's more than a little Turnpike on tracks like "Ticking" and excellent "El Dorado," with Bryan missing a military buddy he once spent every day with. There's also a touch of Springsteen on simple but grand "Overtime"—its pummeling drums like an adrenalized heartbeat. Bryan nods to Kerouac with the spoken poetry of "Fear and Fridays" ("I have taken my motorbike down the Pacific 101 and I have stood stop the Empire State Building with my father/ I've ridden the fear although I was afraid every single time"). "Hey, Driver" features The War and Treaty lending a more anguished emotion to Bryan's conflicts. Ferrell adds a palette of shadow and light to "Holy Roller," and Musgraves proves the perfect partner on "I Remember Everything"—her songbird clarity a cool knife against Bryan's rough mumble. Bryan and Lumineers frontman Wesley Schultz trade great lines on softly jangling "Spotless": "I'm a self-destructive landslide if you wanna be the hill'; "We were soakin', chokin', smokin' in my old shitty apartment." There are surprises, too. "Tourniquet" applies a groovy bass line and uncharacteristically showy guitar, while "Smaller Acts" sounds like it was recorded on Bryan's porch (complete with the background croak of a bullfrog); he cuts loose on the chorus and wails like either no one or everyone in the world is watching. And "Tradesman" is Bryan to a T, as he dreams of being Badlands blue-collar rather than dealing with show biz: "There's something more that I need/ Than accolades and sympathy … So give me something I can't fake/ That rich boys can't manipulate/ Something real that they can't take/ 'Cause, Lord, I'm not your star." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

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Zach Bryan

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Fear and Friday's (Poem)