Say this for
Zach Bryan: when he landed a major-label deal, he decided to go big. Very, very big, as it turns out.
American Heartbreak is a whopping 34 songs, amounting to two hours and two minutes of music -- longer than any album this side of
the Clash's
Sandinista or
Prince's
Emancipation. Like those two records,
American Heartbreak winds up reflecting its era.
Sandinista sprawled with over three LPs,
Emancipation filled out three CDs, and
American Heartbreak simply spills out, an endless playlist that sounds nearly as coherent on shuffle as in its released sequence. That's not a knock on the album so much as a description: it's a clearinghouse for everything the Red Dirt troubadour has completed, whether it's a rollicking rocker like "Whiskey Fever" or a lazily soulful rendition of the
Jimmie Davis standard "You Are My Sunshine." Mostly,
Bryan explores an earnest, heartfelt middle ground that feels like he's standing alone with an acoustic guitar even when he's fleshed out with other instruments. Often,
Bryan feels like an heir to
Evan Felker, the singer/songwriter at the core of
Turnpike Troubadours, one of the key Red Dirt Americana bands of the 2010s. He writes directly but not plainly; his words are unfussy and melodies unadorned. On an individual basis, the songs are striking. Collectively,
American Heartbreak can be a little hard to digest, especially in one sitting: it's a little too much of a good thing, the sounds all bleeding together in an amiable fashion. Parse the songs out into user-constructed playlists, though -- or take it as a series of 20-minute EPs -- and it's hard not to be impressed with the sturdiness of
Bryan's music, how he keeps the dusty literary traditions of Red Dirt troubadours alive without affectation. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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