There was a point when “With Heaven On Top” was being talked about as an EP, and maybe that made sense at the time. Zach Bryan has always written with the sort of immediacy that makes songs feel as though they’ve just fallen out of the sky and landed on tape. But somewhere between the early teasing, the release of “Madeline” — intriguingly absent from the final running order — and the eventual confirmation that this was a full-length record, the whole thing became something bigger. And make no mistake, this is no stopgap. It feels like a proper statement.
It starts with “Down, Down, Stream”, an incredibly evocative opening full of poetry and atmosphere. Straight away, all the things Bryan does so well are here: emotional honesty, vivid detail and that knack for making songs feel lived in from the first few seconds. “Runny Eggs” follows with something of Dylan in Greenwich Village about it, all wrong damn songs in the wrong damn key, rough-edged and gloriously human.
“Appetite” is soul-filled class. There are horns, warmth and a question hanging underneath it all: is he happy? Is that what this is? Bryan has always been able to make uncertainty sound profound, and here he sounds almost confessional. “DeAnn’s Denim” keeps that level high, the lyrics once again sensational, while “Say Why” is full of soul touches and underlines just how sharp a writer he has become.
Then the record deepens. “Drowning” carries real emotional weight, the lap steel giving it a bruised ache that lingers. “Santa Fe” brings a laid-back groove and lets the album breathe for a moment, but “Skin” cuts right back into real pain. It feels raw enough to make you wince. “Dry Deserts” is brilliantly vivid, full of imagery that sticks in the mind, and “Bad News” tells its tale with a proper plot, rooted in land, people and place.
“South and Pine” has a sax part that seems to pierce the dark, and by the time “Cannonball” arrives Bryan is staring straight at brokenness. It sounds cracked and bruised, but all the better for it. “Slicked Back” changes the pace completely, all romance, lust, music and the sense that for one night you might just rule the world. “Anyways” has a defiant streak to it, a refusal to let the greedy bastards win, the answer seemingly to keep playing anyway.
The highest compliment I can pay “If They Come Lookin’” is that it sounds like Jason Isbell. That is not praise handed out cheaply. It has the same precision, the same sense that every line has been earned. “Rivers and Creeks” feels almost claustrophobic, with a strange Elvis-like intensity, while “Plastic Cigarette” uses harmonies to soften whatever hurt lies at its core.
“You Can Still Come Home” is slow-building and string-led, one of those songs that sneaks up on you. “Aeroplane” feels like saying goodbye to who you used to be. “Always Willin’” may well be the working-class heart of the whole record, worn down but still determined, and “Miles” sketches a whole world in a handful of details — all her stuck-up friends in Brooklyn, drinking wine for breakfast — making it feel like a short story set to music.
“All Good Things Past” carries the heavy truth of its title. “Camper” is sparse but telling. “Sundown Girls” is lugubrious, lonely and distant, like being halfway across the world from where you thought you belonged. And then the title track, “With Heaven On Top”, closes the whole thing with something quietly powerful. Not triumph exactly, but acceptance. Maybe even contentment. There’s a sense of a man looking at the rat race and wondering whether leaving it behind might be the closest thing to peace.
What makes this album work is that its scale is earned. Across 25 songs Bryan keeps shifting the texture just enough — horns here, lap steel there, sax in the darkness, strings slowly rising, harmonies smoothing the ache — and all the while the words remain at the centre of it. Rightly so. The lyrics here are often sensational.
You can hear echoes of Dylan, Ryan Adams and Jason Isbell in places, but “With Heaven On Top” never feels borrowed. It feels like Zach Bryan understanding exactly what sort of writer he is and pushing even further into it. What might once have looked like an EP has become something sprawling, intimate and often brilliant.
This is poetry, confession and storytelling rolled into one. And when it hits, it really hits.
RATING: 9/10
