Irrespective of what anyone thinks about the music at this point, it’s undeniable that Zach Bryan is one of the biggest phenomenons in music in the last quarter century.
The conventional rules of music criticism still don’t apply to Zach Bryan. They never have, and never will. Rumblings about needing outside producers or pass-thru edits on his songs, or more skilled musicianship behind him are superfulous. Zach Bryan got here without all this stuff, while others who obsessed over it are still struggling to fill clubs. But can Zach Bryan sustain the same level? That is the relevant question listening through With Heaven On Top. Incidentally, he’s extra cussy on this record, and in a way that feels like it could hold certain songs back. He also makes genre even harder to define, really carving out his own contemporary folk niche, but with glimmers of country, rock, and even jazz, facilitated by the regular use of horns on this record, though sometimes to clumsy and inconsistent results. But Zach Bryan has arrived here by defying odds, proving the critics wrong, and sometimes, outright failing upwards. In the attention economy, Zach Bryan reigns. Sharing unfettered and unfiltered emotion with poetic notions is what allowed him to burst through to the zeitgeist, drilling to the very heart of what connects people to music. The question is if the new album will sustain the momentum, or be the last hurrah for this songwriter era in music that Zach Bryan instigated and inspired.7.6/10
1. Down, Down, Stream Once again Zach Bryan starts an album off with spoken word. This one isn’t a poem, but a recitation of a moment in a Manhattan building he purchased where he’s sleeping on the floor and wakes up being doused by water hydrants after making a fire. This is all just to bookend the idea of experiences flowing to you, through and over you, and then past you like water, perhaps accumulating in a reservoir where they reside like a biography. It’s a good example of mixing the cerebral and the emotional that makes Zach Bryan’s words so compelling, even when his music sometimes isn’t. 2. Runny EggsThis is a classic Zach Bryan song when he takes an understated approach, and his almost whispered vocals find a more pleasing tone to his singing. Like many Zach Bryan songs, the references jump around, but it all conspires to present a cohesive feeling. The song starts with the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain that Bryan experienced in July of 2025, then jumps to his snowy Red Rocks show in 2022. The runny eggs come from a diner on the California/Nevada border. None of these specific events or places are what the song is about. They’re illustrative of how time, place, moving, and travel tend to forge our most cherished and unforgettable memories. He delivers one of those definitive Zach Bryan lines when he says he wants to have a conversation with God and “Tell him I’m sorry for the way that I am, and using his name before saying ‘damn,’” while a wistful steel guitar helps set the earthen, reflective mood.
3. Appetite “Appetite” represents one of the better executions of the horn section on this record, giving the songs a sort of Rocky theme feel, lending to what feels like an underdog story of the protagonist. Autobiographical or otherwise, Bryan uses the song to express anxieties, including not wanting to raise kids with the same insatiable appetites as his own. This song has a good heartbeat to it, and you shouldn’t be surprised if it becomes one of the album’s more favored tracks. 4. DeAnn’s DenimThis is Zach Bryan songwriting at its finest, even if that inherently means another pass or two of editing could have made it even better. Exploiting the jeans = genes wordplay to weave in physical references with thoughts on familial failings passed down through generations is pretty genius. And whispering Zach Bryan works so much better than trying to shout over horns and sloppy production like in some other songs. For the unaware, DeAnn was Zach Bryan’s mother whose early passing inspired his music career.
5. Say Why This song features clever wordplay and a compelling story that utilizes the way the number “40” works its way recurrently into a lumbering lifestyle that can feel like a revolving door of breakup and reconciliation, and sobriety and relapse. “Say Why” is a good song, but not a great one, if only because the horns feel somewhat excessive, and their melody line a bit lackluster. This song is where the production of the album starts to become a bit inconsistent. 6. Drowning Zach Bryan does a decent job making a song out of the idea of falling in love being like succumbing to deep water, and maybe there is a loose tie back to the opening track “Down. Down, Stream.” But the music of this song really fails it, with the strummed guitar offering little more than an uninteresting tone, the horns feeling inebriated and lost, and the high female harmony strained and out-of-place like it was added last minute. The general lack of a second, distinguishing ear in the process to either arrange certain tracks better or cut them outright makes itself obvious through a song like “Drowning.” But hey, being sloppy has never held Zach Bryan back before. 7. Santa Fe
This is one of the more fun songs on the album, and you can tell this thing will bounce live and be a big one on tour. Bryan shared a scratch track version of this song previously that had a more emotional, minor chord feel, but this version feels good too. You hate to keep harping on the horns, but they take what wants to be a rock song, and make it feel hokey. It would have been better to just let the electric guitar steer this ship. Just because you’ve got a horn section rented and in the studio doesn’t mean you should put it on every song.
8. Skin Believed to be about the high-profile breakup with Brianna “Chickenfry” Lapaglia, Zach Bryan really instills his emotion in this track to positive results, and it’s also one of the better arranged and recorded songs on the album. From capturing Zach’s finger movements on the fretboard to give the early moments an intimate feeling, to Bryan shouting in other stanza’s with the moaning steel guitar setting the mood, this is the Zach Bryan sound captured at its best.
9. Dry DesertsDespite the glaring issues with the mix, “Dry Deserts” might be one of the big hits of the record. Bryan finds a big melody and chorus, and leans into it with all his guts and mite. For a 2 1/2-minute song, it feels epic, and takes you places. Zach isn’t a great singer in a conventional sense. But when he finds his sweets spots like he does on this song, he can sell you hard on his virtues. The part of “Dry Deserts” that’s dissatisfying is the mix. In a song like this, you want the horns blasting out and present, especially since they’re arranged smartly here. The guitar deserves to be out front too like it is, but since the horns and everything else is so far behind and fey, it comes across as too loud, and the tone is distracting, even though it fits the song otherwise. It’s just too sloppy of a mix to maximize the song’s potential. But again, it’s Zach Bryan, so expectations are low, and this song will exceed them for core fans. 10. Bad NewsThe news cycle is so frenetic these days, some might forget that a simple snippet of this song stirred a national controversy in October 2025. The song was portrayed by both sides of the political divide as “anti-ICE” with The White House eventually responding to it. The fact that it comes out in the wake of the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis makes it that much more prescient and poignant, almost hauntingly so. As Zach Bryan warned at the time, the song is much more nuanced than it was portrayed originally from a partial clip. It’s still politically charged though. It’s about the fraying of the American ideal, which it seems both sides can agree is happening. It’s also quite a powerful song, and perhaps the most important on the album. 11. South and Pine What an exquisitely-crafted track that proves that Zach Bryan isn’t just a songwriter and a performer, but can be a great producer when there is care and intentionality put behind the effort. The trumpet with the plunger on the horn, the fiddle, the walk down bass line, they all conspire to bring to life an excellent-sounding song. It’s way more adult contemporary, or even jazz pop compared to country or folk, but this fits the setting of New York City where the lyricism is set. This is one of multiple songs where the cuss word comes across sideways in an otherwise mild-mannered mood. But the melody of this song is a monster. “South and Pine” is so good and well-rounded of a song, it just makes you frustrated that so many other Zach Bryan songs are not. You don’t always have to be refined. But you do want a song to be recorded with purpose, and in a way the represents it best.
12. Cannonball This is clearly a personal track to Zach Bryan that seems to be about the passing of a friend or loved one who loved life and gambling. It’s perhaps one of the most emotional tracks of the album, though the ambiguity of the writing might make it a little difficult for that emotionality to be shared with the audience, except via empathy for Zach and the friend. This song illustrates the worst of Zach’s low register, mumbling, emotionless vocals. There are some bursts of intriguing lyrical turns, but the writing overall feels a bit messy, and once again we get what feels like a misplaced F-bomb the song would benefit doing without. 13. Slicked Back Consider this Zach Bryan’s stab at a Tom Petty track down to the Mike Campbell tone on the lead guitar part, or a Heartland rock anthem, and a good one at that. Though it might be more imitation than original, the writing and mood works, and this could be one of the hits from the record, if the magic isn’t lost on Zach Bryan’s more singer/songwriter audience. It’s likely this song is about Zach’s new wife Samantha Leonard Bryan.
14. Anyways This feels like one of the early favorites and potential hits from the album, with a good energy to it that will render well live, and the horns finding a worthy place in the song. “Anyways” is about persevering through self-doubt. Though at first you might think this is Zach speaking to another performer, when a female character enters the chat to offer encouragement, it ups the odds it’s about Zach himself. Zach does himself no favors by setting the song in a key where he quite literally can’t land a couple of the lowest notes. But a song like this is where Bryan illustrates why these conventional criticisms don’t really matter. 15. If They Come Lookin’ The setting for this song is the Red River that divides Texas and Oklahoma. Though Bryan portrays a lot of animosity between the two sides, it’s the cross cultural connection that has codified the Texas/Red Dirt scene. In certain rural areas though, perhaps the two sides aren’t as friendly. The song is perhaps more about hiding out from folks who don’t like you, or running from past mistakes. Overall, it feels like a middling, forgettable track that doesn’t offer much redemption through the unimaginative music, and ambiguous story/message. 16. Rivers and CreeksThis is the kind of song that core Zach Bryan fans will eat up, and all the outsiders will hear and think, “Why the hell do people listen to this stuff?” Zach’s bad attempt at a yodel, and then his voice inflections as an angry shark make for a weird, inconsistent listen. It’s also fair to say “Rivers and Creeks” is very much a stereotypical Zach Bryan song. It might also loosely tie back to the opening track, just like “If They Come Lookin’” and “Drowning,” which also compare memories and experiences to water. 17. Plastic CigaretteProbably one of the most anticipated tracks from the album after Bryan performed it live previously, it’s also the most-streamed song from the album early on. At this point in the album, the little vignettes from life that inspire Zach Bryan’s writing begin to feel more and more thin, while those incisive observations that used to color previous songs are vacant. You can tell why some might find the melody of this song pleasing, or latch onto certain lyrics, but it still feels like a pretty flat effort. If this is the “hit” from the album, Zach Bryan might be in trouble. A lack of a hit was the issue with his album The Great American Bar Scene.
18. You Can Still Come HomeThis is one of the stronger tracks from the latter half of the album. At this point, the listener has probably grown tired of the specificity of recollections that Bryan uses to flesh out his verses. But this strong benefits from a bonafide lyrical hook and a strong message behind it. You also don’t mind the horns in this selection, and there’s isn’t a indiscriminate F-bomb to sour the mood. “You Can Still Come Home” feels like a classic Zach Bryan song. 19. AeroplaneThough “Aeroplane” is perhaps the simplest song on the album, it’s also perhaps one of the best. For once, Zach Bryan sings in a key that’s easy for him. The unadorned guitar accompaniment sets a ruminative mood, and centers the listener’s attention on the lyrics. Once again, ambiguity keeps you at arm’s length from really falling deep for the story. But in this instance, you don’t mind. The incomplete nature is an asset. This is a song that you hear, and then it haunts you. 20. Always Willin’ Some of the most poetic lyricism is found within the passages of “Always Willin,” interspersed with the sands of Sedona that are also referenced, along with Hyde Park in London that comes up in the later song “Sundown Girls.” The string section give this song some strong body, as does the line, “God ain’t a man in a two-piece suit. He’s a miner deep down and He’s covered in soot. And He’ll come find you when it’s time.”
21. MilesThis feels like an old school Zach Bryan track. The guy has always been an indomitable road dog and a restless traveler. This is one of the most predominant themes that imprints itself throughout his music. “Miles” captures that restlessness, and doesn’t allow the music to get in the way. The radio fade at the end gives the perspective of Zach Bryan speeding away towards the sunset.
22. All Good Things Past At this point, it’s just hard to find the capacity or patience to listen to another very personal track from Zach Bryan with messy production and try to glean any value from it. Taken autonomously, “All Good Things Past” is probably not especially offensive. But the volume of these tracks diminishes the value of all the songs on the album, including the good ones. 23. Camper Zach does an admirable job evoking a setting and a character in this two-minute track. It puts you out on the side of the road somewhere out West on the way to California, in a desert setting with brilliant stars, and sleeping out in the elements beneath a truck camper. The point of the song remains a bit ambiguous. But like many Zach Bryan songs, it captures a moment of a life in transition. 24. Sundown Girls This song recalls Zach Bryan’s two-night stand at BST Hyde Park in London in June of 2025. It was his first headliner dates at a major festival in the UK, and he appears to say that he snuck into the back of the crowd during the festival to carouse among the audience. “Sundown Girls” find a great fiddle melody leading into a big chorus. The emotion of the song is triggered by the finality of a tour, and the mixed emotions that comes with it. This could be a sleeper on the record, especially in the 24th spot. 25. With Heaven On Top You have to wait until the 25th track to find the most country-sounding song of the set, and one of the album’s best. Here are the insightful and wisdom-filled lyrics that are missing from much of the middle and ending portions of the album. Here is some great steel guitar complimented by a string section. “With Heaven On Top” is about being unafraid to live life, even if it means getting arrested for a petty infraction, like Zach Bryan did. “You won’t find no answers safe at home. You can’t learn heartbreak from a poem,” he sings. And that’s been the eternal theme of most all of Zach Bryan’s songs—squeezing the juice out of life on the edge of recklessness, appreciative of every moment, and every lesson. Because as Bryan learned from the passing of his mother, all of this is fleeting, and not to be taken for granted. Zach Bryan has never been an appropriate vessel for stardom. Dumb luck and fortuitous timing had him falling face first into it, despite his own best efforts to get in its way. Even a $350 million deal can’t squeeze Bryan’s zeal for attacking life every day like it’s his last on the planet. And it’s that realness, and his present, intimate connection with moments and emotions that allow so many to connect with his music, and so many who can’t connect with it fill with surface spite, and underlying jealousness.
Solid album from him though it seems to take me weeks with ZB to tell how good of an album is truly is. The length certainly adds to that. It may be his best since AH. The acoustic companion album is a nice bonus.
“clumsy and inconsistent results” pretty much defines Zach Bryan. Everything he’s put out sounds like it was recorded in a broom closet
I usually reserve track-by-track reviews for bigger releases, and longer releases. I honestly don’t know how I could have reviewed this album any other way and felt confident about sharing my own opinions. Doing song reviews requires you to really take stock of each track. It’s hard to summarize 25 songs in 8-10 paragraphs. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do a song-by-song review for a virtually-unknown artist and a shorter album if I felt it was the best way to present the material. But do to the time it takes, I’m probably not going to do it for every one. Often it’s unnecessary.
Listening to Zach Bryan for me is like reading Faulkner. Every now and then he knocks the breath clean out of your chest but most of the time you just wish he would sober up and stop rambling. I’ll give this record a chance, but I do not understand his widespread appeal, although I’m very grateful he made rootsy, unpolished production cool again. Net positive.
But I really don’t think it’s a mystery – he’s white boy Taylor Swift…and he never abandoned the Speak Now, DIY ethos.
I think if he stopped releasing 25+ track records it would really help. There are a few artists with the consistent brilliance to get away with this volume of tracks, but most aren’t. ZB isn’t one, which I think is part of reason it feels like there’s too much rambling filler going on
I am just a casual Zach Bryan fan but to me this is an excellent record and will probably be in my top 10 at the end of the year. I love that he followed it up 3 days later with the acoustic versions. He pisses excellence to a certain extent.
Also not sure I get the constant criticism that the guy really connecting with fans and filling football stadiums for multiple nights in the same city should change his sound to be more like the people who can’t sell out small clubs in those same cities though. To a certain extent this is just scoreboard.
He doesn’t clearly fit in one genre, but it’s clear to me that he’s working toward Springsteen with twang. And if you read the comments on YouTube, it’s one heartfelt note after another about what Zach Bryan’s songs mean to those listeners. I don’t hear a lot of nuance in the songs from album to album but I like the songs and appreciate how people are responding to him. He is probably the one relatively new artist that I listen to regularly.
“Bad News” is the most memorable for me on this album but I am only one listen through the album as a whole and have listened to this song a few times. I agree with Trigger about the way this song captures a sense across the board that the US is a mess.
Replying to my own post because I forgot to add this. Trigger also noted that this album might be shorter than others. He just dropped the acoustic version of the songs on YouTube. In an age of streaming, listeners can pick and choose. On one hand, I wonder when will it all be too much. On the other hand, when I was a teenager in the 80s, I was so pissed that I had to chase down expensive bootlegs to keep me satisfied in between the years and years it took the bands I loved to release new music.
As for ZB. I was a skeptic, then saw him live with my teens. It was engimatic and he was genuine. Not the best writer or musician but he’s a performer for sure…..and real. I’ve got my favorite tracks from the first few albums and pretty much stick to those on occasion.
I forget which song it is but he “worked towards Springsteen” by quite literally ripping off the chorus melody of ‘Atlantic City.
Bad News is the best song on the (too long) album. Put out 10 of those and you got yourself a classic. Done. -Zach Bryan apologist
I will listen more and maybe like it more. Increasingly I feel like he gave us this incredible moment of American heartbreak and summertime blues. Which combined have more great songs than other artists I like more will have. But this felt sleepy and boring and lacking energy. Which for me at least isn’t how I would describe his earlier stuff or his live show
Totally agree. Wish he would release more of those energized foot stomping bangers like Quittin Time etc.
I’ve found him to be absolutely exhausting for years now and this hasn’t changed that. It’s getting to a point where I listen to his new releases a few times due to some mixture of obligation and respect and then ignore them completely.
Before I headed over here, I saw that he’d released an acoustic version of this album with the following statement: “I’m assuming this record is just like all the other ones and there’s gonna be a billion people saying it’s over produced and shitty so I sat down in a room by myself and recorded all the songs acoustically so I didn’t have to hear everyone whine about more stuff.”
I guess my intro statement here would be considered whining by some. But at least I’m not the one whining about billions of people listening to my songs and then having to hear everyone whine about them.
“Overproduced” is just not how I would portray this record. But I do respect his effort to put out acoustic versions of these songs. I haven’t heard the second versions yet.
Probably my favorite thing he’s done since Elisabeth – by my reckoning, it delivers as much killer as Heartbreak…and does so in 9 fewer tracks.
Appettite, Santa Fe, Dry Desert, Slick Back, and Rivers and Creeks all have more pop breakout potential than anything since Self-Titled…and the body blows don’t miss either.
I just don’t get why he’s so popular.
There, I admitted it.
I’ve found a handful of songs of his that didn’t send me to sleep.
So many great albums come out, I don’t feel I have the time to doze through so many one paced songs.
And bad words used is just lazy songwriting to me.
Obviously, he won’t care what I think.
I don’t like Luke Combs either but can see why so many people love him. I struggle to understand with ZB.
Sorry!
It’s about the depth behind the lyrics not about the superficial feeling u find behind the song it’s how it relates to everyday people and experiences
But it always ends up the same I just go listen to Dylan yeah the vocals aren’t perfect but at least he can play guitar…
I’m always surprised when people ask this question. Mostly because I don’t think it is all that hard to pinpoint.
For all his production choice flaws and lack of self-editing songwriting wise, Bryan from Day 1 has either marketed himself as OR been marketed as “authentic”. I think young people (especially) are attracted to that because these are the same folks who have known nothing but social media in their lives and the increasingly hyper-processed world of music and entertainment as a result.
He’s a messy (off stage) dude, but that just plays up the idea to his fans that he isn’t some mass-produced pop star run by teams of social media, marketing, and PR folks.
You can certainly quibble about a ton of things about Zach Bryan. And I’m not here to litigate any of them. But I also think the “secret” to his success isn’t that hard to figure out. He’s sensitive and good looking enough for young women to like him – but has enough of an edge to appeal to young guys – all while cranking out songs and albums that for all of their flaws nobody can say have been overly “commercialized” in a hyper-commercialized world.
…of all those lone young, and by no means unremarkable, singer/songwriters that have emerged since the pandemic it’s still his voice and songs that capture me the most. already the first few songs were pulling me into his special way/art that i even hesitate to analyse this album thoroughly out of fear to destroy some of its “magic”. “american heartbreak” may be the landmarke he’ll never reach again, but all the rest – including this – cruises on some artistic altitude – besides sounding good in a typical zach bryan way. with every release i understand more and more why people are flocking to his concerts. there are traces of dylan in his work.
First the political one– you can’t listen to Bad News and the line “ICE is going to come and break down your door” and “on TV someone got shot” without reaching the conclusion that this is all part of a tapestry of contemporary society that Bryan sees as bad news, its not the theme if the song, but included in the confluence of things on Zachs mind that is contributing to turmoil, both political and personal for Zach.
(Incidentally I don’t understand why people on tje right are so triggered by the lyric. Trump and cosplay barbie have literally been saying they want ICE to bust down people’s doors… so when Zach basically transcribes line the right freaks out? Maybe it has to do with the word “your”)
All that being said, the tumult of Bad News sets up what is easily the most beautiful song on the album in South and Pine, which sets up the imagery of being in an intimate club on a sleepy block in New York city on a rainy night. This may seem like an odd comparison but at the end of touring the very intense African American History Museum, you are put in a room with all waterfalls, as a reset and a refresh after a challenging experience. Thats how South and Pine feels after Bad News.
The rest of the album is nice, Appetite, Santa Fe, Aeroplane are highlights. Zach certainly feels like an Oklahoman with New York City on the mind. But dear lord one of these days itd be nice for Zach to put out a standard album with 15 songs or so, because his output is always overkill.
I am. It sure I really get the Zack Bryan phenomenon. His success is astonishing, well done to him. Younger people I know say he is definitely country, I don’t think he is. I tend to agree with you he is his own genre. I have difficulty placing him in any one genre. I have listened to all his albums and have enjoyed them although I think all would have been better with a few songs less. The album I have enjoyed of his the most is live at Red Rock. He is clearly a talented songwriter. I have listened to this album a few times and I tend to agree with you re his best songs. Some of them are very good, I could have done with less cussing. There is too much of it in this album and I don’t think it necessary, I feel it detracts from the song. That could be because I am old! This is a good album which might have been better with less cussing and a few songs less. I have my ticket to see him in the UK in June, maybe then I will really get the phenomenon. I hope so. Sometimes seeing an artist live really brings their music to life. Good review. I might have marked it a little lower. Probably a 6.5 for me at the highest. That might change on subsequent listens.
I do not disagree. His output is incredible. I am looking forward to seeing him. I think the more I listen to this album, the better it gets so I am probably moving more towards Trigger’s rating. No physical release is both disappointing and surprising……or is that just my age talking?
I think “With Heaven On Top” is an excellent album. I really like every song on it. I particularly like how varied yet coherent the album is. And it is precisely the meandering, unpolished, sketchy nature of his songs and production that makes his music so appealing. And yes: Even as a European who has always admired and perhaps romanticized America, “Bad News” touches me the most.
Zack Bryan’s music is like reading Jack Kerouac; it’s profound and life-changing to teenagers, and to adults it veers between being sloppily unique and also hipster douchebag bullshit and back again. It’s not good, it’s just different.
This is a pretty apt comparison, and to it I’d add that, like Kerouac, this is hitting at a time when there’s a particular disaffection among kids for what they view as a fake, superficial society. It’s no mystery why Zach Bryan has blown up in an era of Taylor Swift’s overproduced and repetitive album “events and assorted autotuned Instagram reel-ready horseshit. The word I keep coming back to is “authentic.” I’m not saying Bryan’s schtick is totally authentic, only that it feels that way when you’re used to hearing things called “stripped-down” pandemic recordings when they feature multiple producers, a half-dozen co-writers, etc (I say this as a fan of Folklore and of Swift in general). My high school students just want something real. I’m having an easier time selling kids on handwritten essays and ratty old copies of Of Mice and Men than I did ten years ago. I think something that sort of sounds like your first roommate singing Kerouac’s writing over Bob Dylan’s strumming in the cab of a 1978 Chevy pickup hits just right for kids right now.
I liked ‘On The Road’ and ‘Dharma Bums’ generally, as well as some of his shorter writings but I’m always going back and forth between it being “somewhat inspiring” to mostly self-indulgent nonsense. The subversives of the Beat writers and Bukowski is what made them profound, not the overall quality of their work in comparison to their peers. Zach Bryan’s shunning of technical prowess is the same – his fans see it as being subversive to the status quo and gatekeepers. (See: ‘Revival’ Red Rocks Live Album)
Yeah, subversiveness as an end in and of itself always seems a little silly to me. There’s always something about the culture worth countering, but just shotgunning subversive ideas doesn’t thrill me. On The Road is about the only Kerouac I can reread, and even then, I usually chase it with Rabbit, Run, Updike’s answer to Keoruac, showing the real effects of shunning responsibility to family and work.
America is going through it right now, anti-elite and anti-gatekeeper ideas just being scattershot all over the place. Some are on point, and some are misguided. Maybe due for a cultural response that goes deeper than “Bad News” in exploring the effects of this reckoning.
There are about five songs per album from ZB that I really like, and the rest I find unlistenable, but he’s attempting to respond to the moment with this album, and I guess that’s admirable, and a bit subversive given that most of the other people who could sell 80,000+ concert tickets right now are legacy acts or playing it safe sonically and lyrically.
Here’s hoping there’s a broader conversation coming.
I guess what I find “subversive” about ZB’s approach to his music is how normally good lyrics and good music have have boundaries in which artists generally have to follow for their art to be considered above that of it’s peers. For example if an artist has a seemingly unique idea for a song there are parameters and guardrails artists have to follow to keep their songs from sounding like lazy and meandering folk songs. That’s what annoys me about a lot of folk songs – it’s the complete abandonment of trying to fit a unique thought into a structured framework all while using apt metaphors and language that doesn’t come across as clunky, too on-the-nose, and straight up open-mic sounding – it’s like playing slop on a bar pool table. Zach Bryan has never seemed bothered to spend extra time on lyrics and ideas to find ways to have his songs sound like they were written by an expert songwriter who goes the extra mile to produce an airtight and polished complete idea. For me he always gets half the way there and just settles for the rough first idea and first recording.
I will listen to the album again to try and get a more accurate take on his development as an artist.
Whenever I hear a truly well-written song it’s like being taken on a ride and often it’s wondering “how did they come up with that great lyric.” Often when I hear a ZB song I am wondering why did he word that lyric like that? I could think of multiple ways to have that idea sound more interesting and musical.
Not trying to butt in, but I find your exchange interesting. I have a completely different read on zb. I don’t think he sees himself as being subversive. He’s just writing songs. Lots of them. Some land better than others. But he’s doing it from a folk tradition, not a conservatory or compositional tradition. That makes his songs inherently kind of rough, and leads to weird phrasing and word choices and the narrow harmonic pallette he uses. I look at it as Beatles va Stones, with him being on the Stones side, more or less. He’s all loose, elastic everything. I lump him in with Craig Finn and Isaac Brock, both of whom I consider some of the best songwriters of the past thirty years, and both people no one would accuse of being polished.
If classic literature is taking a hold with the next generation that’s awesome. Every generation has its rebellion over the former and that 2012 Millenial “Keep Calm Carry On” “bacon bacon” internet bullshit was a turning point towards popular culture getting really dumb – and it did. It’s crazy to me to rewatch old Simpsons episodes and to see them reference Alan Ginsberg and other figures few my age would understand. Maybe the young people are alright even if ZB generally blows.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s plenty of stupid culture among my students. But at this point, I think reading books is countercultural enough to have some cachet. Certain books land: Of Mice and Men, anything Shakespeare, Gatsby. Others flop totally. But it feels different than it did a few years ago. I’m training attention span, but concepts like symbolism and subtext come easy in a world of memes and emojis, and since the old Western canon has gotten shoved aside a bit, there’s no sense that Steinbeck or Coleridge are being handed down by the establishment. It’s always a pleasant surprise when my kids really like some Shelley poem, but it does still happen.
I can’t believe Warner Brothers gave this dude 9 figures and are continuing to let him release albums with “teenager making demos with Audacity” level production. This goes beyond creative control. It’s genuinely offensive.
Some of these tracks are just unbearable to listen to. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that there are a few songs on this album that might have the worst tracked vocals outside obscure punk records that I’ve ever heard.
And I hate it because I know some of these songs are so well written, but they’re just mired in whatever this boneheaded refusal to put aesthetically pleasing music on wax is, and it’s become his MO.
It makes these albums such a chore to listen to because I want to hear and appreciate the songwriting as much as I want to break my finger on the skip button for half the run time.
Anyway, the price Warner had to pay to make all of the money off of the stuff he recorded on a laptop in an AirBnB and in a barn in Oregon is to let him do whatever the hell he wants.
(Separately, the songs on his studio records genuinely don’t have the same oomph as the stuff he writes in the wild.)
I think it’s perfectly fine for an artist to write and compose songs with whoever they want and wherever they are most comfortable and inspired.
Way too many still view Bryan as this fledgling artist. He cashed the check, and that check had enough zeros on it for A&R to require a finished product.
But then I think about the articles Trigger has had to publish in recent years about dance halls closing. I think about the way kids at high school dances do everything but actually dance. I think about the way I enjoy music now, almost always alone. I think about the algorithms partitioning everyone into little sonic silos. And it makes perfect sense: this guy taught himself to play, went viral with homemade videos, and cut his (and his band’s) touring teeth only after a few million views. The dues-paying is different, and he’s dancing with what brung him.
I agree to an extent. I’m not trying to fundamentally change anything about Bryan’s process or music.
My argument is that taking NBA All Star money and turning in a record with chord buzz, string squeak, off key vocals, incoherent melodies/accompaniment, and bouts of mixing that you would get refunded for in your local hometown studio doesn’t make you more of an authentic artist, it makes you an asshole.
He didn’t do that with Quiet Heavy Dreams or American Heartbreak, long before he got paid by a major label.
Fair point. He does seem to be trolling…well, almost everyone: lyrics, production, album length, etc., all seem a little calculated as eff yous to a variety of people. Maybe just his contrarian personality (i.e., he might be a bit of an asshole).
You’re overrating production. I listen to music from the 1920s to the 2020s, and the low fidelity of those early recordings has actually made me pretty indifferent to low fidelity and imperfection – it’s all about writing, conviction, and performance. That being said, I don’t feel like this record is underproduced. It just isn’t a gridded out, ultra clean pop record like so many people have become accustomed to the past 20 years. Albums sounded like this in the 90s all the time, recordingwise.
Hard to compare eras like that because Bryan is 100% a product of the digital age, even if his work is a countersignal.
I don’t see it as overrating production as much as I do a lament of what could and should be because the production value substantially detracts from the quality of the art.
I’m just saying thirty years ago, no one would have batted an eye at the production on this record. It’s neither over nor under produced. It mostly sounds live in studio. The obsession with “perfection” has been strangling most popular music for twenty years.
I have to live with an album for some time – break it in like a new pair of boots – before I can formulate an opinion. With 25 tracks, it will take me until mid-spring to formulate an opinion about “With Heaven On Top.” But, I appreciate your assessment.
Every time I listen to parts of the album, I hear something new and interesting. Like the lyrics in the song “Anyways,” when the girl tells ZB “Saw you back when you played West Virginia, When you were too scared to go on stage.” When we went to the ZB concert in Huntington, WV in August (my best concert of 2025 …. why didn’t get a SCM 2025 concert recap/ranking this year??) he talked about playing his first ever show across the river in Kentucky (assuming that was Ashland, KY). Here’s this kid who was born in Japan, raised in Oklahoma, traveled the world as a sailor, got his first music break in Appalachian bars (his manager is from WV), and currently lives in Philadelphia / New York.
My earliest takeaway from “With Heaven On Top” is the album is a roadmap. Zach Bryan is a nomad, a traveller without a home, transcending borders like he transcends genres. The album is a roadtrip.
A song every two weeks, on average, for the past six years! And so many of them are excellent. I think all the criticisms of ZB are earned and correct, but also irrelevant because he more than redeems himself with the excellent songs he does deliver consistently. The guy just doesn’t have ANY filter between his notebook and what he releases, and that’s an approach that seems to work for him. I always listen to his records in chunks like groups of EPs, because they’re too overwhelming otherwise. I’m only on the first chunk, but I really dig Appetite, Runny Eggs, and Santa Fe so far. All that being said – The AH through Nine Ball run is the sweet spot where almost everything clicked, plus he had help in the production chair on those.
Bad News definitely proof that while Zach Bryan is a great writer he should never try to say anything about politics because he has nothing to say. Classic dumb guy who is just like “damn worlds crazy huh” and acts like that’s profound.
Typical bryan album. Lots of songs where words run together, lots of songs that mirror each other. I also dont like the cuss words, really messes up a song like south and pine which is pretty good otherwise. I found 5 songs decent enough to put on my playlist from here but nothing that great. I actually liked a couple songs that trigger seemed to hate. Drowning is probably my favorite on the album and i like all great things past. But really the album is just meh. Its not bad i just dont hear much of anything great. You could play it from start to finish and not have to cover your ears or skip forward but def nothing that you would feel the need to stop n play again. Just ok.
I personally really loved the album while yes it is a long album and some songs definitely could’ve been left out as they don’t really deliver or add to the album I truly think its beautiful. I’m a huge Zach Bryan fan which might explain why I like it so much but its honestly one of my favorite albums he has. It feels emotional and raw while also changing it up a bit. I dont understand the hate he gets.
Trigger, sorry to go off topic in this thread but not sure where else to ask. Do you have any thoughts on Cody Jinks using most of 2026 tour dates opening for Five Finger Death Punch? I get why he used a limited number of his tour dates to open for Luke Combs and Eric Church and that there is overlap in the metal and outlaw country communities, but given the sheer number of dates seems like a lot. Most of his headlining dates are festivals and rodeo type events, leaving fans who mostly want to see him with very few opportunities. I assume both artists see this as an opportunity to expand fanbases or Cody just thinks it will be fun and different.
At the risk of messing up my algorithm, I won’t be listening to this. I’ve tried with this dude and I just don’t get it.
Let me preface this by saying that I like a lot of Zach Bryan’s stuff. Heck, I like a lot of this album.
But the gratuitous cussing has gotten out of hand. I admit I have prudish tendencies that I try to keep in check, but was there really no other word that could have fit the meter and rhyme scheme other than g**d***? Or f******? Not once, not twice, but dozens of times? If you have problems with self-control in your speech, well, OK, but it’s really not all that hard to keep f-bombs out of your written copy, you just have to want to.
And say what you want about the LP/CD era of music, the formats forced a discipline on producers and artists to decide: Which of these 25 songs are the 8 or 10 or 12 BEST songs here? We only have room for so many on the album. These 25-song monstrosities really push those production decisions onto the listeners, and I don’t think that’s healthy. Some of these songs are better than others. Find the worst half and don’t release them. Then you have the opportunity to go back to the studio and make them better. Or leave them in a vault for Zach Bryan’s kid to clean up a little bit and release Zach Bryan’s /Songbird/ in 50 years.
An album and an acoustic version would seem like a lot, but then he just posted a video to YouTube of him playing another new song. Life is short. Get it out while you can.
Happy for people that really love this guy.
I tried quite hard before and don’t like it.
Congratulations to him for his success.
It’s not like that. There’s appropriate times, and then there’s not appropriate times. Zach Bryan’s cuss words on this album weigh it down, and you see quite a few folks concurring on this assessment. Also, Zach Bryan does have a lot of younger fans.
I am still over here listening to Silverada and Turnpike Troubadours! Here we are 5 or 6 years into the Zach Bryan era and I still don’t understand why so many people like this! There are SO MANY better options out there, but unfortunately it’s kind of a popularity contest. Someone goes viral on social media and next thing you know everyone is a fan! And if you’re not, well then you are criticized! I choose to not follow what is trendy! I will stick with what I think is actually good music! Kudus to those that like him!
Trigger Doubling back to this, because im hearing mumblings from people who are more connected to the country music scene than I am that Zach intended Bad News to be a more politically charged song, but then after the backlash from the snippet, he either changed up the lyrics or wrote new lyrics to make it more milquetoast. (Someone said Zach was intending to write a protest song and then chickened out) Mind you, these are just rumors, and no one should report them otherwise, just curious if youve heard anything like that at all.
Zach Bryan said in a statement at the time that the greater song was more nuanced and that he was being taken out-of-context, so I’m not sure how much that theory holds water. You never know I guess, but when it comes to anything politics, people get very emotional and conspiratorial, so I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in that assessment.
Source: savingcountrymusic.com