Zach Bryan - American Heartbreak

2xLPs on Black Vinyl Say this for Zach Bryan: when he landed a major-label deal, he decided to go big. Very, very big, as it turns out. American Heartbreak is a whopping 34 songs, amounting to two hours and two minutes of music -- longer than any album this side of the Clash's Sandinista or Prince's Emancipation. Like those two records, American Heartbreak winds up reflecting its era. Sandinista sprawled with over three LPs, Emancipation filled out three CDs, and American Heartbreak simply spills out, an endless playlist that sounds nearly as coherent on shuffle as in its released sequence. That's not a knock on the album so much as a description: it's a clearinghouse for everything the Red Dirt troubadour has completed, whether it's a rollicking rocker like "Whiskey Fever" or a lazily soulful rendition of the Jimmie Davis standard "You Are My Sunshine." Mostly, Bryan explores an earnest, heartfelt middle ground that feels like he's standing alone with an acoustic guitar even when he's