Zach Bryan - The Great American Bar Scene [2LP]

Zach Bryan's The Great American Bar Scene spreads across two LPs, a sprawling 2024 set that sounds like last call in a town where everyone knows your truck.

The Oklahoma songwriter, who first built his following with raw recordings made while serving in the US Navy, arrived here as one of the biggest names in American music without ever sanding off his rough edges. Coming a year after his self-titled album, this record leans into storytelling, small-town ache and the kind of hard-won optimism that sounds better with a beer in hand.

Sandpaper brings in Bruce Springsteen, a meeting of two heartland poets that feels inevitable once you hear it, while Better Days pairs Bryan with John Mayer for a warm, sun-faded singalong. Pink Skies, the record's emotional centrepiece, turns a family gathered in grief into a quietly devastating chorus.

Nineteen songs is a lot of ground, and Bryan fills it with bar-room characters, long highways and the people he cannot stop writing about. His voice cracks in all the right places, and the songs feel written fast and meant sincerely, rough edges left in on purpose.

Honest, a little ragged and built for singing along at closing time, this double vinyl is a jukebox you can keep at home.