On the 4th of July, Zach Bryan released his fifth studio album “The Great American Bar Scene.” In sharp contrast with the holiday’s joyous fireworks and parties, the record is nineteen tracks of sheer melancholy and nostalgia, powered by Bryan’s ornate words and bare production.
Over the course of the last five years, Zach Bryan has blossomed into a mainstream musical icon after getting discovered on YouTube and consequently getting honorably discharged from the Navy. Songs like “Something in the Orange,” “Burn, Burn, Burn” and the Grammy-winning duet “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves have become anthems in the world of country music.
In “The Great American Bar Scene,” Bryan was joined by many legendary voices in the music industry such as Bruce Springsteen, John Mayer, Noeline Hofmann and John Moreland. Each feature added a personal spin on their respective songs like Springsteen’s iconic guitar in “Sandpaper” and Hofmann’s tremendous vocals in “Purple Gas.”
Keeping with Bryan’s tradition, “The Great American Bar Scene” opens with a poem entitled “Lucky Enough.” The poem details Bryan’s idea of fulfillment. When he looks back on his life, he wants to be satisfied that he put the people and places he loves first.
Towards the end of the poem, Bryan’s voice grows raspy as he finishes the final couplet: “Grab your beer through tears and fears, the great American bar scene,” thus referencing the premise of the album and definitively marking its beginning.
“The Great American Bar Scene” is worlds away from the raw country aesthetic of “American Heartbreak” that propelled Bryan into the limelight back in 2022, and it is an even further cry from his electric guitar-ridden self-titled album released last year.
Therefore, it goes without saying that this album is not meant to appease everyone. As Bryan explains in his preface to the album: “If you don’t like it, I assume it’s not intended for you.”
The album speaks to the fact that Bryan makes music for his own enjoyment over the enjoyment of others. Not a single song off of “The Great American Bar Scene” seems to be intended as a radio song or a pop hit. Rather, Bryan created the album as a love letter to his influences: Jason Isbell, the Lumineers, Tyler Childers, and the Turnpike Troubadours.
For years, critics and country music fans alike have argued that Bryan’s music is not “real” country. These claims hold a degree of truth since his music often fails to fit into any genre-defined box. Instead, Bryan artfully utilizes inspiration from all over the musical sphere, namely old-school rock and Appalachian folk music.
“Boons” is undoubtedly an Americana folk song in which Bryan explains his attachment to rural, nobody towns, AKA the “boonies.” He sings, “So leave me out of that talk downtown / I have found everything I’ll ever need / Real deep in the boons.”
He conveys unadulterated wistfulness, complete with a forlorn harmonica as its melody.
Although the album’s production is overarchingly simplistic, there is a level of depth and intricacy in the record that stems from Bryan’s words rather than the instrumentation.
“The Great American Bar Scene” is a lyrical album above all else. To truly appreciate the record, his lyrics have to be picked apart and attentively studied in order to tune into the intricate storytelling that Bryan weaves into his songs.
In the Bon Iver-inspired “Bass Boat,” Bryan sings, “I was raised by a woman who was hard to impress… And I can talk to God and I can pray all day / But you can’t heal something that you never raised.”
This song, in particular, shows a somber, sorrowful side to Bryan in which he tells the story of a rocky relationship between a person and their mother due to the mother’s alcohol abuse. It is purposefully one of the most stripped-down tracks on the album in order to show off Bryan’s lyrical talent and emotional songwriting.
Even as one of the most decorated, famed voices in music today, Bryan is grounded and relatable in a way that not many other artists are. Through this album in particular, Bryan presents himself as “just one of the guys,” slumming it in small-town bars with his friends.
“The Great American Bar Scene” pays homage to a world that only a select audience can understand: the beat-down, rural bar where friends shoot billiards and drink until the sun rises.
However, throughout the album, this middle-of-nowhere bar setting becomes achingly familiar, even to those who have never experienced it. His words bring “the great American bar scene” to every corner of the world and make listeners feel they are playing pool and drinking beer right alongside Bryan.