With Heaven on Top Review

Bryan wrote every song here and produced the record himself, and both decisions are audible. The performances are rough in the way live country used to be, the band sounds caught rather than assembled, and a spoken poem sits in the middle of the track list without apology. Nobody at a label signed off on that sequence.

Where it works, it works on the writing. Runny Eggs, Say Why, Plastic Cigarette and the title track are as plain and specific as anything he has done, which is the whole appeal: a man describing a kitchen, a highway or a bad year without reaching for a metaphor to dignify it.

Where it fails is the length. Seventy eight minutes of one voice and one texture flattens the good material, and most listeners will lose the thread somewhere in the twenties. The reviews reflected that split, with strong marks from AllMusic and Clash and a more measured 7.0 from Pitchfork. It opened at number one on 134,000 units, his second chart-topper, and has been widely reported as the last album he owes a major label, which may explain the feeling of a man emptying the drawer.