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- Summary: The fifth full-length release from country singer-songwriter Zach Bryan features guest appearances by John Mayer, John Moreland and Bruce Springsteen.
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- Record Label: Warner Records
- Genre(s): Country
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 6
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Mixed: 1 out of 6
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Negative: 0 out of 6
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Jul 10, 2024At 28, he’s good — very good, in fact — but still has some growth ahead of him in achieving the discipline of songwriting heroes like Springsteen and Jason Isbell. .... “Better Days” is one of the better numbers. Springsteen’s guest spot is a vocal one, of course, on “Sandpaper,” and it’s nice to hear the master and student together.
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Jul 10, 2024These 19 songs feel like a batch of old friends largely because of Bryan’s other magical gift: his knack for absorbing and transforming his many influences into something that feels uniquely his own.
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Jul 10, 2024The Great American Bar Scene sees Bryan once again settle into something of a familiar groove. He tries throwing John Mayer and Bruce Springsteen features into the mix, but the results are ultimately the same: more slow-to-mid tempo country crooners with results-may-vary emotional resonance. The album is unsurprisingly at its best when Bryan injects fresh ideas and more energy into his formulaic approach.
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Jul 15, 2024The sound of Bar Scene is the most full-bodied of Bryan’s career, building upon the heartland rock that he explored in his 2022 major-label breakthrough American Heartbreak and the self-titled follow-up from last year.
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Jul 10, 2024At over one hour in length, the music of Bar Scene often reverts to an amiable, continuous blur. Still, when the music falters and a sense of over-familiarity kicks in, it’s impossible to deny the bravery of Bryan’s admissions and the power his words have at their most candid.
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Jul 19, 2024It's telling that it takes cameos from a pair of rock superstars -- John Mayer helps sculpt "Better Days," Bruce Springsteen haunts the corridors of "Sandpaper" -- to help pull Bryan's aspirations into focus: where the rest of the record seems caught in its own head, these tunes have a forward motion that makes the rest of The Great American Bar Scene seem relatively bereft of musical imagination.