Really felt the sameyness as I got into the back half, but still thought it was a good, if too long, listen. The horns do add something interesting whenever they come in, and the title track is a nice closer.
I'm sure with a repeated listens some of the songs will grow into their own and parts will begin to stick out, but outside of 4-5 tracks I am not in love with this on first listen. ZB by the numbers for the most part.
Drowning's verse sounds like ZB doing Big Thief. I wish he kept that into the chorus, where it devolves a bit back into a standard chorus for him. Horns are nice.
I know people on here are a bit down on Bar Scene, but I really loved my first listen to that album, and thinking he was doing new-ish (for him) things on a bunch of the songs (“Oak Island,” “Better Days,” “Sandpaper,” “Bass Boat”). Not really getting much of that here, but I hope it grows on me.
Lol, @phaynes12, almost every interaction we have on this website now is you responding to something I said with an instant "well, actually, I disagree!" post but not actually quoting me. If you want to have a conversation, have the conversation. Otherwise, you don't need to consistently follow up my posts in this fashion. I know we don't agree on most things.
Bar Scene has some great stuff on it. 28, Pink Skies (the one released before the album, not the one with the bad feature tacked on), Memphis; The Blues. Bass Boat doesn't do much for me on the album but it was cool to hear live. The rest is okay. I think the Self Titled record is better, and American Heartbreak is better than everything after it, and the first two records are still very easily his best.
i don't understand saying this and then passive aggressively filling your diaper when someone says "yeah i'm down on Bar Scene"
American Heartbreak would be so good if it were even just trimmed to the length of the two albums that followed it. Still his best, for my money, but there's a little too much bloat there for me to go back to it super regularly these days.
then again maybe you were originally down on Bar Scene, I wouldn't know because you've been known to delete negative posts about an artist once you've changed your mind
Lol, I did this one time and I believe I explained my reasoning for doing so in the thread itself. But sure, lets go back and relitigate something that happened literal years ago when it has absolutely nothing to do with the thread/artist in question.
That’s fair! There were posts I regretted in that thread and I changed my mind. Didn’t really want those out there anymore, because they didn’t reflect how I felt and I was writing about that artist for my day job. If that’s a mark against me for you, I get that.
@Craig Manning i wasn’t responding directly to your post, I was discussing the topic that had been at hand. You are hardly the only person discussing Zach Bryan albums in the Zach Bryan album thread as for the other stuff about some supposed history I have with disagreeing with you or whatever you’re on about, I don’t know what you’re on about. Even if that is true, this is a weird way to handle it, man.
Bar Scene isn't as good as the prior two, but still come back to it often. Oak Island is one of my favorite songs he's written.