I Didn’t Sign An NDA, So I Can Tell You That The New Zach Bryan Album Is Great.
I know. Zach Bryan is supposed to be a bad guy. Persona non grata. Someone we no longer want to root for. Bryan has left a high publicized trail of ex-girlfriends that he had sign NDAs, and one who notably refused to do so. He had a hair transplant, he got married to a woman that’s a direct doppelgänger for his most recent ex-girlfriend, the one who wouldn’t sign away her truth. It’s messy. On the human level, there are red flags aplenty.
Good news! I did not sign a NDA, so, despite all that, I can tell you that Zach Bryan’s latest record, With Heaven on Top, is great.
Besides, the album includes the song “Bad News,” an anti-ICE anthem which has been getting a lot of attention. If you are the kind of music lover who needs your artists to be good people, well, then I guess “Bad News” can be your alibi here. Because no matter which side of the aisle you’re on, Bryan’s lyrics and concern for “the fading for the red, white, and blue” appears to be genuine.
Personally, I think of music a bit more like sports. As my buddy put it the other day, “I don’t care how many times Jordan Addison gets arrested, as long as he catches the ball on Sunday.” Certainly, art is different than sport, but I tend to separate the art from the artist. And, ladies and gentlemen, Zach Bryan is an artist.
When Bryan first released With Heaven on Top, it was jarring to his core fans. It was highly produced. There were horn sections! It sounded more like a Bruce Springsteen record than it did Bryan sitting around by himself at the campfire jamming on his acoustic guitar.
Bryan had clearly been planning for this panic, because he quickly followed up with an acoustic version of all 25 tracks. But here’s the deal. Despite what Bryan’s considerable fan base thinks they want; you owe it to yourself to listen to the album as Bryan originally intended it: more produced, grander, and richer. This is the version of the album I’m the most excited about as it shows what Bryan can become, demonstrating true growth as an artist. Of course, go ahead and listen to the acoustic versions as well. There may even be a few tracks (“Aeroplane,” etc.) that sound better stripped down. But before you grab that Gibson crutch and hobble over to the familiar firepit, please spend the 78 minutes listening to the more produced version of With Heaven on Top that the artist himself wanted to put out before his fanbase’s panic set in.
While Springsteen is clearly the influence here, you won’t find a “Thunder Road” or “Born to Run” on With Heaven on Top. That would be asking too much. But the similarities to Springsteen are significant. Most notably how prolific Bryan is. A buddy of mine asked me the other day when I texted him a song from the new record, “Does he just come out with new 50 song albums every month?” While that may be a bit of an exaggeration, Bryan is an artist “with songs falling out of his pockets,” a high compliment often given to “the Boss.”
Since I’m told TikTok has reduced all of our attention spans, and no one reads articles anymore. Here are the 5 songs you need to listen to that will make you no longer care if Zach Bryan is a good guy, because you’ll love his music regardless.
“Appetite”
After starting the record with another one of his patented spoken word Oklahoma does McConaughey poems (“Down, Down, Stream”), and an aptly named table setter, “Runny Eggs,” we get to the good stuff.
If you had to listen to only one song on With Heaven on Top, to see where Zach Bryan wants to take things it would be “Appetite.” Who knew someone could make “Why am I in Northwest Arkansas” sound like such a magical query. I can only hope this is a song about an ill-advised corporate gig Bryan played at Walmart HQ in Bentonville, Arkansas, as we hear him sing “playing shows for those who don’t care at all, with my money bloody, and my belt so tight.” If this is how the new Zach Bryan works himself up an appetite, I’m hungry to hear more.
“Dry Deserts”
As close as Bryan’s pickup truck gets to “Thunder Road” is the power anthem, “Dry Deserts.” This one will have stadiums rocking as the masses pump their fists for the chorus, “Will you cross dry deserts, babe? Would you cut through pine? Would you swim upriver, when I’m surely on your mind?”
From the first line of the song, “Driving out to California,” to the portrait he paints of the “kids with all their fucked-up virtues,” “Dry Deserts” will leave you with night sweats unable to stop thinking about how much your lover is willing to give.
“Say Why”
My personal favorite on the album is the little earm worm titled “Say Why” which clocks in at just over two minutes. Once you hear “Say Why” once, you’ll need to hear it over and over again. “Say Why” is a drinking song, as Bryan sings about spending “my last dollar on some courage I can buy.” In the end, “Say Why” gives us a lot more than forty ounces, most notably the little run-on he does at the 1:06 mark:
Forty ounces of it before you tell me goodbye
Still drove forty hours and I'd drive forty more
Forty days in the desert just to wind up at your door
Forty ouncеs, forty minutes, forty days and forty ways
Forty reasons that you're lеaving and forty more to stay
In those twenty second section of “Say Why” if you don’t feel Bryan’s boots stomping all over your heart, you might be dead.
“Bad News”
I’m not including this track because of politics. I’m including it because in a day and age where people, including artists, have become afraid to speak their mind—an artist like Bryan with nothing to gain, and everything to lose, is still willing to worry aloud about his country.
I watched the Golden Globes a few weeks back just to see if Hollywood, a group notorious for running their mouths about any and all issues, had anything to say about the present state of the world. Not a peep. The most we got was Jean Smart referencing her red-carpet remarks, while not saying what these remarks were during her actual acceptance speech. What has always made art, including music powerful was people speaking their mind, one way or another. And whether you agree with him or not, this song is just that as Bryan finds himself in an America where “Fake News” has quickly turned into “Bad News.”
“Santa Fe”
It should be noted that the track on With Heaven on Top that has blown up as the early fan favorite is “Plastic Cigarettes.” That one is still growing on me, so I’ll round out my top 5 with “Santa Fe” instead. I pick this song because like “Appetite,” it’s an example of the evolution of Zach Bryan. The production is dialed up, the guitar still sounds great, and Bryan continues to work his lyrical magic. When you expect him to rhyme “Call up your mother” with “tell her you love her,” of course he doesn’t. That would be too easy. Instead, he follows up the singsong of “Call up your mother” with the starkness of “tell her you’re all alone, with some sky by Santa Fe, New Mexico.” Tracks like “Santa Fe” give us the best of this new version of Zach Bryan, while reminding us why we loved his music in the first place.
With Heaven on Top is living proof you don’t need to love the man, to respect the work.
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