Summertime Blues (Warner, 2022)
Zach Bryan
Reviewed by Dan MacIntosh
Although it's short and only clocks in at 2:07, the modern-day Bonnie & Clyde tale, "Matt & Audie," hits hard. It tells the story of a couple that "bought an Astro van and a loaded revolver," with an illegal plan to escape poverty. "And he told his lover, "No more just scraping by/We're gonna be richer than the big machine/I will buy you diamonds bigger than the stars at sea." Bryan takes a relatively amoral perspective on these robbers-to-be. "Matt and Audie were a few fine folk/Made love in the morning with a few high hopes." Perhaps, as Bruce Springsteen once sang, these two had debts no honest people could pay. Or maybe it's better to die on your feet, than live on your knees. "I'd rather die a desperate man than a man that gets caught," Matt is heard to comment.
"All The Time," which is semi-close to a love song, has another one of those lines that just jumps right out at you. "There's got to be more to this than bein' pissed off all the time." This could be commentary on a troublesome relationship. Then again, Bryan might be commenting on life in general and contemporary America in particular.
The act PiL once sang how "anger is an energy," though, and anger often energizes Bryan's music. Whether sad or angry, though, Zach Bryan is passionate, energized and inspired throughout this brief, but noteworthy extended play release.
CDs by Zach Bryan
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