Zach Bryan - With Heaven On Top
After a two-year break, Zach Bryan shows that he’s still got it.
With arguably the first major release of the new year, country superstar Zach Bryan contributes to the genre’s recent, extremely hit-or-miss tradition of lengthy LPs, with his 25-track sixth studio album, With Heaven On Top, released on January 9th via Belting Bronco/Warner. And, while many of his contemporaries’ attempts at bulkier tracklists end up feeling like bloated products of greed for chart dominance rather than works born from genuine ambition, Bryan’s comes across as much more authentic.
With Heaven On Top isn’t a radical reinvention for Zach Bryan by any means. If anything, it represents a hybrid of sorts of the sounds and influences of his last three LPs - The Great American Bar Scene, Zach Bryan and his other long album, 2022’s American Heartbreak. This results in a pensive, airy, wistful-sounding mix of primarily country and alternative rock which is fairly simple, but provides the perfect setting for Zach Bryan’s best quality as an artist - his lyricism.
In many ways, this album’s themes are similar to Bryan’s previous work - it tells stories of inner tumult, hard times, travels, parties and more. It also explores new themes, particularly sobriety, as well as new beginnings and reinvention. The lyricism is typically strong, grounded and mature, with vivid, detailed storytelling. Vocally, Zach Bryan maintains his trademark mix of soft and subtle and raw and sincere deliveries, oftentimes using both within the same song, adding power and emotional resonance. This produces major highlights on the album, such as “Skin”, “Runny Eggs” or “Bad News”.
Having said all of this, the album is still slightly weighed down by its length. While the songwriting keeps the album captivating for the majority of the nearly hour and twenty minute long runtime, the level does dip slightly past the halfway point of the record. The stretch in the very middle of the tracklist especially, from “Slicked Back” to “Rivers and Creeks”, while far from weak, is probably the least interesting on the project. The ambition of the LP is admirable, and mostly executed well, particularly for a project where Bryan is the only listed writer and producer, but some more tonal and dynamic variety could still have benefitted the record’s overall impact.
In conclusion, With Heaven On Top, while not necessarily a big step forward artistically for Zach Bryan, is nonetheless another very solid entry into the Oklahoma native’s incredibly consistent discography. Bryan continues to showcase himself as one of the most capable representatives of the modern-day country music scene, and as a great alternative to his more obviously dislikeable and musically immature contemporaries like Morgan Wallen. This record does everything it sets out to do very well, and makes for a great start to the year’s big musical releases.
7.9/10
