Zach Bryan

• Summertime Blues [Warner EP, 2022] ***
• Zach Bryan [Warner, 2023] A
• Boys of Faith [Warner EP, 2023] A-
• The Great American Bar Scene [Warner, 2024] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Summertime Blues [Warner EP, 2022]
A mortal man walks among us on a nine-song EP (note: that's long for an "EP"), depositing tracks that are merely likable after establishing his bona fides with some sure shots ("Quittin' Time," "Summertime Blues") ***

Zach Bryan [Warner, 2023]
Even before the Navy proffered an honorable discharge so this 25--year-old Okie veteran with eight years of service behind him so he could finally make music fulltime, he'd racked up 2019's solo acoustic DeAnn, 2020's solo acoustic Elisabeth, and the 2022 Warner debut American Heartbreak, which won him a CMA best "new" artist plaudit and is dwarfed by this follow-up, which never falters for 16 tracks. I mean it--not a duff track anywhere from a seaman who stakes his claiml with spoken poesy reporting that "I've taken my motorbike down the Pacific 101 and I have stood atop of the Empire State Building with my father." After which it's distinct tune after distinct tune whether he's hitchhiking through clonopin failure, craving love that survives daylight, finding God in her Holy Roller eyes, reaching out to a gal whose father has had it with Long Island, offering an eastern Montana gal a tourniquet, reaching out from his '88 Ford to a third gal whose mama pawned her wedding ring. He never comes out on the other other side of a song without having marked it with a detail no one's ever thought of before. A

Boys of Faith [Warner EP, 2023]
This being country music you'd guess the boys who populate this EP are Christians, and probably they were and in some crucial sense still are. But they're also sinners whether they're young Zach's dad betting on his nine-ball prowess or Zach himself selling his oldest Gibson to finance a flight to NYC, where he catches up with a homegirl who's migrated to the East Village and somehow gets to glom a billboard with--what??!!--his picture on it. A-

The Great American Bar Scene [Warner, 2024]
Bryan is such an affable singer and fluent songwriter that no matter how fond he is of bars (and between his busted nose and his broken heart he's got his reservations), I suggest he start his promised health kick by attending to his lungs not his liver—cigarettes are killers. Yes he can write even sharper songs and has already proved it. But losing his money to a bookie or calculating the distance between his beating heart and the bullshit on late-night TV, noting that the only outlaw he ever met was in the Marines with him, inviting John Mayer onboard as if he's doing him a favor although Springsteen is obviously a different story, wondering whether God is a person or the sound of laughter in a place he's yet to find, he's self-evidently a country singer who'll be around so long he'll eventually be too big for the category. A-