Zach Bryan: Summertime Blues (12"EP) [WARNER]

Why you'll love it

Nine songs from Zach Bryan's 2022 EP on one 12" record, including "Oklahoma Smokeshow," the song that broke out from it. It arrived just two months after American Heartbreak, which tells you how fast Bryan writes.

This edition

• 12" EP, 33 1/3 RPM
• Nine tracks, four on Side A and five on Side B
• Belting Bronco / Warner Records pressing, made in the Czech Republic

About the EP

Most artists take a breather after a debut major-label album. Zach Bryan put out the 34-song American Heartbreak in May 2022, and two weeks later was already teasing new songs online. He meant to keep the next one short, but, as he put it, tracks kept slipping onto the record by accident. Belting Bronco and Warner put out Summertime Blues that July, and the extras turned out to be keepers. "Twenty So" was the first taste, and the title track followed on July 6 along with the news of the EP.

"Oklahoma Smokeshow" is the one that took off, a lovesick small-town song with a melody that sticks for days. The title track and "Quittin' Time" are classic Bryan, raw and close to the microphone; "Jamie" brings in his friend Charles Wesley Godwin, whom he met over social media and then took on tour. It is honest and quietly brilliant, nine songs with no padding, which is about all you can ask of anything recorded in a hurry. On vinyl it plays like a long, warm evening on the porch.

Tracklist

Listen

On Belting Bronco / Warner Records, first out in 2022.