Zach Bryan might make twangy country-rock with song titles like “Rivers And Creeks” and “DeAnn’s Denim,” but by all quantifiable metrics, he’s basically a full-blown pop star who can sell out the biggest venues in America. It’s safe to assume he also had a pop-star budget while recording his new album With Heaven On Top, which he recorded with a huge backing band and numerous engineers. I guess Bryan was anticipating some pushback from country purists: “I’m assuming this record is just like all the other ones and there’s gonna be a billion people saying it’s over produced and shitty so I sat down in a room by myself and recorded all the songs acoustically so I didn’t have to hear everyone whine about more stuff,” he wrote on Instagram ahead of With Heaven On Top‘s release last week. Today, he’s assuaging those complaints with With Heaven On Top (Acoustic).
This is a track-by-track acoustic album with just Bryan and his guitar. He added that this version of the album has some mistakes and that he “didn’t redo any of them.” The cover art was apparently taken from a wall painting at one of the houses in Oklahoma where he recorded With Heaven On Top, which I think is sweet. “This one’s for all the weird audiophiles that no matter how much I put into a record will always miss just a guitar & me,” Bryan added in another Instagram post, along with a brief tribute to the late Bob Weir. Also, Bryan apparently received Weir’s old Telecaster as a wedding gift.
Hear With Heaven On Top (Acoustic) below.
With Heaven On Top and With Heaven On Top (Acoustic) are out now on Belting Bronco/Warner.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source stereogum.com ’
