Album Review: Zach Bryan, ‘Zach Bryan’

Fresh off the slow-burning Grammy-nominated success of “Something in the Orange” and American Heartbreak, Zach Bryan has returned with a record-breaking eponymous album that simultaneously sent him to the top of the Billboard 200, Billboard Hot 100, and Artist 100 — oh, and he also got a swanky new mug shot that same week. So, what do we make of the no-frills country-rock everyman who’s blowing most of his contemporaries (across genres) out of the water with a fraction of the obvious mainstream appeal and celebrity energy? Cue up “Fear and Friday’s (Poem)” for an answer.

“I don't need a music machine telling me what a good story is, and matter of fact I've never asked nothing from nobody,” he says in the low-stakes album opener “Fear and Friday’s (Poem)." And he’s right. For years, Zach Bryan has existed squarely outside the Nashville machine and has only recently become more adjacent to its well-oiled combination of radio dynasties and mainstream-courting tactics. He makes a few steps towards that machine on his new self-titled album, but they’re not exactly concessions. That’s because Zach Bryan is one of the rare songwriters who actually knows how to blend the autobiographical and the metaphorical with a literary bent. Zach’s paeans about Oklahoman life, his time in the Navy, and his journey through various romances drip with intense humanity — and that’s because he can make a single lyric carry the emotional heft of a cutting, offhand remark from a Hemingway character. He’s not a songwriter who mines his life for stories that are easily sellable and repackaged into hot gossip for the sake of an album cycle, he’s simply telling stories the best way he knows how — his way.

The songs on Zach Bryan feel like the rest of his catalog in the sense that they’re more journal entries than songs — anecdotes from past lives and off-the-cuff Notes app scrawls turned music. “Summertime’s Close” establishes this trend with a scrapbook energy that pairs perfectly with Zach’s penchant for rawness in his recordings. This focus on an unvarnished final record is what keeps Zach Bryan singular; although a few high-profile collaborators angle him toward proper mainstream hits, these aren’t songs that will fit seamlessly on radio because they purposely avoid the sheen of an airtight master à la Luke Combs or Morgan Wallen. Be it clipped vocals, ever-lingering guitar strums, or intimate studio banter, the rawness of Zach Bryan is the only way that any of these songs would have made sense. He simply gives his reflections and stories space to breathe.

The first half of Zach Bryan is easily its more consistent side. “East Side of Sorrow” finds him relaying several devastating vignettes — “Heard your brother lost his mind in the city last fall / Was it his blood, or his conscience, or the alcohol?” — over an arrangement that relies on an electric guitar to bring the lift that the chorus melody sidesteps. It’s a move that underscores the slight unpredictability of Zach’s song structures because — again — these aren’t songs tailor-made for radio. Zach’s relationship with melody on his new album is hit-and-miss, sometimes he stumbles on an earworm, and, other times, he delivers a plodding melody that obfuscates whatever he’s trying to accomplish with his lyrics. On “Fear and Friday’s,” he opts for an upbeat melody that provides a welcome contrast to the militant drum pattern and his couplets about his fear of endings. On “Spotless,” however, a once-promising link-up with The Lumineers, falters on account of rudimentary lyrics (“I ain't spotless, neither is you / For once in my life, I'm gonna see it through”) and a droning melody — at least the harmony in the chorus still packs a hearty punch. There’s also “Jake’s Piano — Long Island” a winning two-part quasi epic that most plainly lays bare Zach’s discomfort and embrace of change; when the drums and strings roll in right before the final chorus, the level of catharsis unleashed could rival a tsunami.

Outside of that Lumineers collaboration, duets are often the high points on Zach Bryan. Mike Trotter of country duo The War and Treaty absolutely steals the show with a rousing vocal performance on standout “Hey Driver.” Here, Zach, Mike, and Tanya deliver some of the album’s most moving vocal performances to inject some verve into relatively simple lyrics about small towns and fine women. Sierra Ferrell provides a delicate harmony on “Holy Roller,” which features the kind of cavalier vocal delivery that truly showcases the bite in lines like “Lord, I didn't plan this / I'm just goin' as far as the wind blows / Coastlines to the flatlands / Get your rich hands out of our plans.” And, of course, there’s the terrific Kacey Musgraves duet “I Remember Everything,” which became the first Hot 100 No. 1 single for both artists upon release. Every few years we get an undeniable breakup anthem for the ages that actually hits every individual feeling that swirls around in the hurricane of emotion that comes during a relationship’s demise — “I Remember Everything” is one of those.

The back half of Zach Bryan houses fine songs, but none that are as captivating as those on the album’s front half. “Tourniquet” could have been the strongest of the bunch, but its overreliance on the “tourniquet/turn and quit” wordplay stunts it a bit, thus leaving “Smaller Acts” — a quiet, unassuming ode to the small things that keep love alive — with that crown. At times, especially on “Tradesman,” Zach faces some songwriting stumbles (“I wish I was a tradesman / Learnin' from some beat down old layman”), but that’s all rectified by the time he reaches album closer “Oklahoman Son,” an apt conclusion to an album chiefly concerned with elongated periods of major life changes. “How'd you fall for a man I've grown to hate?” he asks.

Simultaneously a comprehensive introduction for new listeners and an instance of clear artistic evolution, Zach Bryan is a winning record — even in its valleys lies a lyric or vocal lick destined to send you into an introspective spiral tear-streaked with hope for a couple more tomorrows.

Score: 78