Photo Credit: Trevor Pavlik
In case you hadn’t noticed, country music is enjoying a “boom” moment – earlier this summer, country songs occupied all the top 3 spaces on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time ever – and then, it happened again. But whether this phenomenon was to the genre’s benefit or not depends on who you ask. Jason Aldean’s “Try That In A Small Town” inflamed the culture wars early on in the season – accused of race-baiting and feeding into existing stereotypes. Later, breakout star Oliver Anthony proved divisive with his anthem of political alienation “Rich Men North of Richmond,” which abruptly turned its fire on to welfare recipients halfway through. Such was the frustration among country’s more progressive voices, that “My Church” and “The Bones” star Maren Morris announced her departure from the genre earlier this month via the two-song EP titled The Bridge. “I’m taking an ax to the tree // The rot at the root, is the root of the problem // But you wanna blame it on me,” she declared in a blazing triplet.
Amidst the raging debate, one figure has managed to transcend the division and unite both country’s old and new guards. Zach Bryan, who enjoyed a breakout moment last year via the lilting love song “Something In The Orange,” turns his focus inwards rather than outwards – opting for heartfelt, lived-through stories over political point-scoring. Like his idol Jason Isbell before him, he uses classic country-rock soundscapes in aid of urgent and immediate lyricism – documenting classic struggles in a modern world, and tuning out the demands of the Hot 100. When he declares, “I don’t need a music machine telling me what a good story is,” on “Fear and Friday’s (Poem),” you can tell he means it.
On the album’s chart-topping centerpiece, “I Remember Everything,” Bryan enlists Kacey Musgraves for a timeless tale of a relationship coming under strain. Utilizing a compelling conversational tone between the two greats, the song jarringly contrasts warm, nostalgic memories with dispatches from the present. One moment, the two partners are driving to the beach in an ‘88 Ford, with their labrador sticking his head out the passenger door, the next Bryan’s character is binging whiskey, as an increasingly frustrated Musgraves asks, “You’re drinking everything to ease your mind // But when the hell are you gonna ease mine?”
In contrast to the terse “I Remember Everything,” the stunning and understated ballad “Jake’s Piano – Long Island” proves to be the album’s tenderest moment. A meditation on a close friend’s passing, it’s a reminder of the ways we carry the memories and legacy of the deceased (“I still tie that double knot, the one you taught // The best parts of you are here, but you’re gone”). Nowhere is the influence of Isbell more evident than in Bryan’s ability to stir heartbreak in a single line – here, it arrives via a downcast confession: “These ain’t the hopeful hands you held before.”
Zach Bryan is a heavy album – one that is reliably self-serious as Bryan tries to enter the canon of country greats. But whereas this mood would stifle and burden an LP by a less talented artist, Bryan doesn’t let serious subject matter get in the way of compelling melodies. “Overtime,” the album’s proper opening song, is one hell of a mission statement. Beginning with a “Star Spangled Banner” guitar lick, it sees Bryan list off the complaints of his critics (“all my songs sound the same”) and the problems that have haunted his family (“a mean, mean gene”) before a propulsive swirl of horns, drums and guitar arise to suggest that there is nothing he cannot triumph over.
And, although, Zach Bryan is a serious and sorrowful album, it is first and foremost a triumphant one. Here, one of Bryan’s most compelling and enduring talents proves to be his ability to mine the deepest and darkest elements of the human condition and emerge with nuggets of hope. On the affecting “East Side of Sorrow,” Bryan mines a litany of intense challenges – war, death, and religious alienation, among them. But he emerges with a simple, yet compelling, mantra: “Let it be, then let it go.” It’s solid life advice, although you’d be missing out by letting this album go.