Comes on 2LP vinyl.
Being a Zach Bryan fan before the pandemic, it’s safe to say that I have a long history with the “Heading South” singer. Discovering him in early 2020 just months after his debut album, DeAnn, dropped, I’ve had the opportunity to watch his meteoric rise to fame. From the early days of DeAnn and Elisabeth to the triumphant release of the mammoth American Heartbreak, I’ve enjoyed nearly everything Bryan has released over the course of the last five years. The question that remains is, “Does The Great American Bar Scene live up to the high expectations that Bryan has set for himself over the past few years?”
I would have to say yes.
The more you listen to this album, the more you realize that this record is not about the titular great, American bar scene but instead is about all of the stories swapped, memories made and people met there. As I alluded to, The Great American Bar Scene, at its core, is a contemplative record. While, of course, there are high-energy crowd-pleasers like “Oak Island” and “American Nights,” which is looking to be the runaway hit off of the record, it’s clear that Bryan was much more focused on crafting narratives that would be brought up in quiet conversations at a bar.
One of the most profound examples of this has to be “Towers,” a track that ponders who God is and how he manifests in our lives. The central question of “Do you think God’s a person?” is already a compelling concept that has been debated for centuries, but Bryan makes this concept his own by theorizing that He appears in everything from the reflection of light in your lover’s eyes to the sound of laughter through the walls to time itself. These theories, while poetic in their own nature, once again tie into the fact that this album, at its core, is about the meaningful conversations had at bars across the country.
