7/10
Zach Bryan has returned. Just nine months after his number one album, With Heaven on Top, Bryan is back with his EP, Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs. Along with eight new tracks, the country star has dropped other exciting nuggets for fans, including a memoir and a two-hour sit-down interview with Matthew McConaughey, his first in years. Bryan is showing a new side of himself, one that is sober, settled, and ready to reflect.
The record opens with “Lodi When,” a stellar start. The chilling and dreamy opening features an organ and synthesizer, but doesn’t stray too far from familiar Bryan territory with beautiful layered vocals. The song focuses on nostalgia and the pain of past decisions. “If you could write a book on the man you once were / Would you write about drinking or would you write about her?” Bryan sings. The track has everything Bryan does well: heartfelt lyricism, slow Southern vocals, and a stunning guitar instrumental. Bryan’s trip to central California certainly paid off.
Bryan follows this up with “Robot Killed The Working Man,” which is about exactly what it sounds like. The song is Bryan throwing his cowboy hat into the automation and artificial intelligence debacle, and he does not hold back. “The robot killed the working man / Took the nail and hammer right out of his hands,” Bryan chants. Sadly, Bryan’s point about the danger of modern technology is just a little too on the nose. More implicit lyrics would have served Bryan much better and aligned more with the rest of the EP.
However, Bryan’s explicit messaging is indicative of something bigger about his new identity: he’s got problems with the way the world is, and he wants to speak up about them. This trait is increasingly rare in the conservative landscape of country music, but Bryan is bringing the country genre back to its outlaw roots, and he is not slowing down. To be fair, Bryan did touch on hard-hitting topics on With Heaven on Top, with the song “Bad News,” a direct rebuke of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detentions. But if Bryan is going to continue in the political direction, we hope he can find a way to make it more subtle and personal.
One of the most anticipated tracks of the album is “Lies,” featuring Lana Del Rey. It’s a simple piano ballad about accepting hard truths. “Tell me the truth when it’s hardest to say / Even if it means that you’re leaving this way,” Bryan and Del Rey sing. While the pair sound nice together, the song is just boring. The lying dilemma presented is nothing new and leaves the lyrics feeling dull.
“Backwards” has all the sounds of a classic Zach Bryan song at first. The track explores ideas of forgiveness and karma, and unlike most of Bryan’s discography, he doesn’t spend the entire song wallowing in the past. Surprisingly, he acknowledges his mistakes without self-pity. “Everything I ever said, I said in reverse / Everything I ever did, hell what’s it all worth?” Bryan sings. This is the closest Bryan will come to writing a happy love song. The song works for Bryan as an apology video: acknowledging his mistakes rather than glazing over them, hoping that it will propel him into the future, rebranded.
“Plainsman,” featuring the band Turnpike Troubadours, is easily one of the best songs on the EP. The track focuses on Bryan’s rural identity and his connection to the land, which he conveys through his signature songwriting. “You can take him off the plains but the plains live in him / Like a moccasin, sittin with his river-bend venom,” Bryan sings.
The song also calls out the ingrained habits that could end up killing you. “Honeysuckle choking out an old fence row,” the Turnpike Troubadours sing. Coming from two newly sober artists, the song feels like an authentic reflection, rather than a box-checker to squeeze in social commentary. The track only gets better with impeccable vocal performances from Bryan and Evan Felker, the lead singer of Turnpike Troubadours. Simply put, it’s impossible to feel nothing when you hear the harmonies on “Plainsman.”
The final song “You’ll Get By” is the perfect end to the release. It’s simple, slow, and catchy as Bryan offers advice to listeners. “Take the telephone off the line awhile / Never let your hands play for a rich man’s dime,” Bryan sings. It leaves listeners on a bittersweet note, a little bit sad, but with assurance that everything will work out. Once again, Bryan refuses to leave his record with a happy ending. He is not interested in leaving the audience settled, even when he is so himself.
Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs’ brevity drives Bryan’s point about his growth with great clarity. Many of Bryan’s past records tended to drag on, so receiving a succinct body of work from him is a true relief. Bryan’s talk of becoming a better person parallels him becoming a better musical artist. Between all the years of scandals and all the hits and flops, can Zach Bryan finally be the man and musician we’ve always hoped he could be? On Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs, he’s closer than ever.
