On Friday, Zach Bryan released a brand new studio album, kicking off the year not only with a new record, but also freshly married and sober. While the moment itself is significant, the fact that his last album arrived only 18 months ago makes the lack of cohesive substance across this release more noticeable. If the sign of a great songwriter is the ability to “do a lot with a little,” in With Heaven On Top, Bryan does the opposite, presenting random, unrelated context in the various half-told stories to comprise the project.
By dropping With Heaven On Top, Zach Bryan has released a complete artistic statement, a finished product ripe for interpretation. Unfortunately, much of the album consists of Bryan listing disparate locations, recounting his road-worn lifestyle, and lazily attaching a central idea that feels rushed and ultimately disconnected by the time it appears in the chorus. He shifts subjects more frequently here than at any other point in his songwriting. A large percentage of the record is constructed that way, leaving listeners who consider themselves avid listeners exhausted.
Over the course of a full listen, the opening half of the project feels more personal and sincere than much of the material found on The Great American Bar Scene. “Down, Down, Stream,” a poem that opens the record, centers on a stream of water that washes everything away, creating the sense that this is a version of Zach Bryan at genuine peace. “Runny Eggs,” immediately following the poem, carries that same calmness, with a soft, smooth arrangement that suitably backs a positive recollection of his truly crazy life. On the following track, “Appetite,” Bryan shifts into a triumphant, high-energy moment driven by prominent horns. It marks the album’s first unfinished narrative, though the lack of resolution isn’t detrimental. Instead, it mirrors the song’s unanswered questions at its core, such as whether he wants his children to grow up like their father and why he finds himself in his current position at all. Bryan has long expressed disbelief in his rise as a widely relatable songwriter, and he continues that tradition here.
Other songs from the opening half, like “Deann’s Denim,” “Skin,” and “Drowning,” showcase Bryan at his best, with lyrics that flow seamlessly, paint vivid imagery, and serve the stories with clear purpose. Lines such as “There God goes turning creeks in the rivers out of white snow” and “I’m taking a blade to my own skin and I ain’t never touching yours again” exemplify his ability to share his thoughts like raw, intimate works of art, deeply impactful and resonant in Zach’s unique way. However, “unique” wouldn’t be the right word for the following clump of tracks, which, for the most part, is directionless filler music.
Fatigue sets in around the ninth track, “Dry Deserts,” and it’s not merely due to a lack of context. The song follows Zach questioning his partner’s devotion, and while the instrumentation builds on that tension, a momentum-killing halftime break offers a sense of resolution that the narrative itself never attains. Even when Zach revisits the question, the arrangement makes it feel as though the story has already concluded, creating a strange dissonance between the lyrics and the music. Meanwhile, on “If They Come Looking,” Bryan experiments with a lo-fi, indie rock sound that is pretty upbeat and totally new for him. However, by staying so simple, the electric guitar riffs and solos feel out of place when they appear, alone in a large gap of the mix that is otherwise empty.
“Plastic Cigarette,” although a cleaner, fancier name for a vape, starts roughly. In the opening lines, “Well, I ain’t written a love song in so long as your hair leads down your spine, but I don’t mind if you last tonight, I’ll regret it for the rest of time,” it’s incredibly difficult to extract any complete thoughts from Zach’s words. As you move through the lyrics, you can’t help but second-guess your comprehension when you encounter lines like “My brother had told me to leave, but I didn’t believe that evil would mean some people you meet out in Queens,” leaving you wondering which key plot point you missed to arrive there.
For the most part, the rest of the songs on the latter half of this album are also pretty headache-inducing. “Camper” and “Sundown Girls” sound fine, but they mainly describe his lifestyle’s actions and habits, like playing shows and sleeping in his clothes, again adding main points that don’t align at all. For example, if Zach is trying to convey the point that “The road goes on ’til it ends,” you usually have to get through entire verses that are stacked entirely with aimless imagery that fails to correspond with the true meaning. It’s untrue to say that there are absolutely no good qualities within the weakest points of With Heaven On Top, but it would be a tough task to point out a list of significant positives.
Compared to his past work, With Heaven On Top has a much clearer division between the “good” and “bad” songs. While the sound itself is noticeably different, the most significant changes lie in the lyrics. Thoughts and stories are often left unfinished, rolling into big hooks that fail to connect, leaving listeners in a haze of confusion. At best, the record shines for the evolution of Bryan’s sound, venturing further from country than ever before in a way that still feels natural to him. Unfortunately, the inconsistencies in songwriting prevent the album from fully realizing its potential.
