I listened again today and I think the thing that kinda gets to me the most is how many songs follow a really similar structure. So many of them start subdued, acoustic, moody, sparse and then halfway through the song it builds up and gets upbeat, the catchy hooks arrive. It's a good song structure, but it happens soooo much here it gets a little tiring to me
I finally had a chance to listen to this entire thing a handful of times. I love it. he is such a great writer. I'd honestly only lose a few 3 tracks.
American Cars Downfall Paid Time Off Staying Still The Great divide Haircut willing and able Porch Light A few of your own Dan
Record has definitely grown on me with repeated listens. I'd say it's much better than the Zach Bryan record from this year in terms of white boy singer songwriters.
Outside of Skin and South and Pine, I really haven't gone back to it. My wife has been playing this in the car, so it's a bit easier to zone out on the sleepier moments of the album.
I would take Santa Fe, Skin, Dry Deserts, Bad News and South and Pine over anything on this album by a large margin. Both albums are spotty as hell, but the best of Zach's stuff still shines way more for me
Yeah, this album is way better and more fully realized than the Zach album, IMO. So many of Zach’s songs feel like rough drafts to me at this point, which is not the case for this album, even though I still think it could have used an editor.
This definitely is more cohesive and yes, fully realized, but I simply don't think the songs have the highs, it's a lot of "good stuff" and doesn't really get into great for me.
South St and Pine St are parallel streets in Philly that are multiple full blocks away from each other, so that song is invalid. You can’t meet there.
I don't necessarily disagree with you that this album is mostly "good stuff" and not extraordinary, but there are a few tracks that tilt into great territory for me ("End of August," "American Cars," "The Great Divide" and "23," namely) and that's more than the zero great songs I heard on the new Zach Bryan album, which I think is handily the worst thing he's put out.
Wild - I think WHOT is ZB's best album. I love it front to back. I like The Great Divide, but nowhere near as much as WHOT. Also not sure why we are comparing the two so much.
I really don't like "Bad News." I get what he was going for, with the "I got some bad news/I woke up missing you" punchline set against all these lyrics about the tumult of this moment in American politics/society, but it just ends up feeling ham-fisted and trivializing to me, especially given his history of both-sidesing political matters. The other four are alright and made my cut-down version of the tracklist.
ZB’s best work is still his earlier, rawer stuff imo and I think he tries for a rushed feeling to the new high production stuff and it rarely works. I think Noah Kahan took full advantage of the fame and money he got in between records and you can hear it on the tracks. I like ZB better overall, but think this is the better of the 26 records.
But how do you know it's about Philly. Those are super common street names and the song says she's in her New York City gown. Nothing else points to Philly.
Because roughly a quarter of his songs reference Philly landmarks and he lived around the corner from me for two years... over near Pine Street.
there are not a lot of folk/country/rock songwriters that can sell out stadiums who also released overlong, same-y albums in 2026.