REVIEW: Zach Bryan - With Heaven on Top
Your soul's like an old Kentucky coal mine
78:16 // January 9, 2026 // Belting Bronco / Warner
My personal reception to a new Zach Bryan album is rather predictable at this point - I’ll declare it remarkably high-quality for a contemporary country artist with a huge audience, but simultaneously decry the occasionally corny lyricism, the constant repetition of themes, and the overstuffed tracklists which provoke unwelcome comparison to the likes of latter-day Drake and Morgan Wallen in their garish lack of filtering.
And, sure enough, latest full-length With Heaven on Top once more demonstrates the same positives and negatives which have long anchored Bryan’s approach. The majority of tracks here are stripped-back tunes in the archetype this singer-songwriter has always favored, their heartfelt nature and periodic gift of a great hook asking forgiveness from the oft-familiar subject matter and the overall sense of same-iness. Unsurprisingly, the album begins with yet another goofy poetry reading, and oh, did I mention there are twenty-five songs?
All that suggests Bryan’s shtick might be wearing thin, at least for me, but that’s not really the case. For one thing, despite its gargantuan runtime, With Heaven on Top remains a rather pleasant listen throughout - indeed, the average track here might be superior to those of the last few efforts. For another, this old dog does seem to be learning some new tricks, with more elaborate arrangements featuring horns and the like gaining prominence, at least here and there. Of these experiments, “Bad News” will probably attract the most attention, given its frighteningly timely excoriation of ICE (“every day on the news, someone else is shot”), and it sure is nice to see a country singer with tons of fans defending what would’ve passed for “American values” without comment a decade ago instead of gratuitously jumping at the chance to cheerlead the fascist bandwagon, but more simply, the song is also one of the best examples of Bryan utilizing a broader soundscape than we might expect, to impressive effect. In similar fashion, “Anyways” is an arena-ready total jam, and tracks like “Slicked Hair”, “Always Willin’”, and “Sundown Girls” are immensely catchy without detracting from the rough-edged authenticity which has successfully differentiated Bryan from most of his peers. If most of this tracklist isn’t all that memorable in comparison to those standouts, it’s at least notable that Bryan isn’t resting on laurels, even as his rate of bangers to decent tracks remains fairly standard-issue. Fine by me.
7.0/10