Zach Bryan - "The Great American Bar Scene"

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Aug 23, 2024

Country music is home for me. And, like a lot of people my age, I find that home has been overrun with nonsense.1 For Country, that trend started in the wake of 9/11, because obviously a genre called “Country” should be about patriotism right? Right?!

Well, the genre-at-large lost touch with its roots, and most of the good Country artists don’t really get radio play, in my experience.2

So I tend to sit back and let the good ones come to me. Finding good Country music is a lot like fishing, nowadays — get your lines in the water and wait. Sooner or later, a rod will jiggle.

The one that jiggled this time is actually another substacker (or three of them in a trenchcoat, as the case may be) — The Music Swap, run by Ben Dockery, Jonathan Berry, and Kody Gibson, posted this enthusiastic, off-formula newsletter talking about Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene at the end of July, and I just couldn’t ignore it.

For starters, critics have labeled Bryan as Alt-Country. This particular sub-genre trends toward a return to the genre’s roots, reveling in the dirt and sweat on the working man’s brow, swapping stories about outrunning the law,3 and creating music which is both specifically meaningful to the artist but also generally relatable to the rest of us, as listeners. The vein features artists such as Tyler Childers, Jason Isbell, and Margo Price. With three top-40 albums in the last two years,4 Alt-Country acts represent fully half of the Country albums which have appeared in my Top 40 for the last three years.5

Bryan, himself, is an Oklahoma native, though he was born in Okinawa, Japan as a military brat. Per the same family tradition that saw him born overseas, Bryan spent eight years in the navy starting in 2013. In his free time, he wrote music. His friends recorded him performing some of his songs on their phones, and these made their way onto YouTube. He also managed to self-produce two albums during his time in the navy (DeAnn in 2019; Elizabeth in 2020; both titled using the middle names of women who played important roles in his life).

In 2021, Bryan played the Grand Ole Opry, then signed a record deal with Warner. Six months later, the US Navy granted him an honorable discharge to allow him to pursue his career in music. He has released albums every year since, and The Great American Bar Scene is now his fifth LP.

Given the title, you might expect the album to be full of bro-country party anthems, which have had an outsized influence on the genre over the last decade or so. And I think Bryan was aware of that — that could explain why Bar Scene opens with a poem in its intro track. “Lucky Enough” features Bryan introducing the album through a rambling, slightly slurred poem that goes on for two-and-a-half minutes, laying out a list of humble goals he would like to achieve, experiences he would like to live, if he’s ‘lucky enough’ to be able to do so. All the while, an acoustic guitar and a violin provide a simple, somber backing.

The message is immediately clear — this Bar Scene isn’t about partying or getting drunk. It’s about life and the people living it. The following eighteen tracks are varying stories and vignettes. At first, I felt that each was, perhaps, being presented by a different speaker. The laid back tone is reminiscent of this concept of the deeply familiar comradery of regulars piling into their local dive every night to socialize and swap stories, air grievances, drown sorrows, and revisit old times.

But as the album goes on, it becomes clear that, unfortunately, this isn’t what the album is doing; or, if that was what the album was doing, it sorta loses the concept somewhere. It’s still about life and living, but it’s more directly about Bryan’s first-hand experiences. Even the early tracks which fit the concept I thought I was hearing, such as “Bass Boat”, are layered with very clear personal meaning. “28”, for example, is about Bryan turning 28, his relationship with his girlfriend (who is from Boston), and a veterinary emergency (their dog is also named Boston, apparently), and the feeling of all of that coinciding.6 And all of this is masked in a song about taking a trip to Boston and New York.

While I am disappointed about finding that my initial read on the concept doesn’t hold water, I am thoroughly impressed by Bryan’s use of metaphor.

Through it all, though, somber remains the dominant tone. That is both a strength and weakness for the album — he achieves this incredible, overarching atmosphere to the album reminiscent of smoke-filled dives full of regulars telling stories and propping one-another up. At the same time, it comes with the unfortunate burden of sonic monotony. The songs blend together at a certain point, with not a lot to differentiate them.

Except for the lyrics and stories being told. And Bryan is a talented lyricist. Every song contains some incredibly well-crafted lines, and his strength seems to be in creating concise images layered with meaning. Take, for example, the opening lines from “Towers”:

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“Play me something gently, I'm across the ocean missin' home
There are lights on sparklin' towers that shine dark when seen alone”

The first line is really just context, but the second is meaty. It gives a clear image and then immediately subverts it and provides a strong indication as to his mental state (read: lonely and depressed). And the above lines are, again, just the first two lines of the song — one song out of eighteen. I’ve seen a lot of good gems in Bar Scene, I just happened to be looking at these when I reached this point in the review.

It’s also worth noting that one of the best tracks on the album (and one of the brightest, tonally) features Bruce Springsteen. “Sandpaper” is a solid listen and a great metaphor. Other top tracks include “Northern Thunder”, “Pink Skies”, “Towers”, title track “The Great American Bar Scene”, “Memphis; The Blues”, “Oak Island”, and “28”.

“Better Days” isn’t bad, but I, personally, find that John Mayer’s presence on the track sours the experience.

Closing track “Bathwater” plays on the old phrase “toss the baby out with the bathwater” and laments the state of contemporary Country music.

Overall, it’s a solid album. There’s a lot to love here, and it’s just unfortunate that it’s all kind of ‘samey’. Still, as much as I caught on these first three listens, I feel like there’s more I haven’t managed to grasp. So this one’s going on the back-burner for a while.

~~Rating: Teal~~ Blacklisted7

Zach Bryan - "The Great American Bar Scene"

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