It’s been less than a year since Zac Bryan released his last album, with heaven on topA 25-track opus which debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 on January 24, 2026. But it turns out the prolific Bryan still had a lot to say.
Today (October 16) they released the interesting title Young Manhood and Other Donable OrgansAn eight-song EP written by a typically Oklahoma singer-songwriter.
Brian, who turned 30 earlier this year, included some tracks he tested on the road on his most recent tour, including “Robots Killed the Working Man” and “Backwards,” which features an equally interesting album cover in the set featuring Brian standing in a field pointing a shotgun at a smiling image of himself about 12 feet away. On Instagram, he posted the cover and then added another image in which he is seen pointing a gun and the song title coming out of the barrel. He added a happy note, “Love you guys so much and hope you enjoy this.”
In his relatively short, highly successful career, Bryan has teamed up with artists such as Bruce Springsteen, The War & Treaty, and Kacey Musgraves (including the 2023 Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping duet, “I Remember Everything”), and he continues his collaborative ways Young Manhood and Other Donable OrgansPartnering with Lana Del Rey on “Lies” and the Turnpike Troubadours on “Plainsman”.
The album may be short – it runs about 28 minutes – but it packs a wallop in its variety with Brian incorporating strings on “Lies” and breaking out of his usual mid-tempo safety zone on tracks like “Dog Days”, as well as picking up some really inspired early samples for a few songs. The lyrics are more suggestive than literal and often cryptic, but Brian still manages to set an unsettling mood and emotion with almost every song. If marriage has brought a new happiness – they married last December – it hasn’t spilled over into his music, which is actually a good thing. There’s nothing here that has the sweetness of a love song like 2022’s “Son to Me.” The world needs a brilliant Brian.
Below, board Ranks each of the EP’s eight tracks.
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“Is the color blue entangled in you”
Brian gets a little moody and swampy on a track that tries to set the mood more than in any kind of literal sense. The title, which is repeated throughout, appears to be a reference to Bob Dylan’s classic “Tangled Up in Blue”, but then it involves John Coltrane, whose last name Brian uses several times, and the phrase, “Roll Um Easy”, is the title of a Little Feat song, and Brian delivers a fairly cryptic lyric that appears to be about a relationship with a woman who is “like she is, but she ain’t like she used to be.” just go with it.
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“Plainsman” (featuring the Turnpike Troubadours)
You can take the man out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the man, that’s the theme of this mid-tempo track featuring turnpike troubadours and beautiful instruments including violin, cello, mandolin, fiddle and banjo. Brian and Evan Felker of the Troubadours performs lead vocals here, their voices complementing each other smoothly on the simple tune about “the beauty of the wasteland.”
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“backward”
It’s the closest Brian gets to a happy love song as he reevaluates life and past bad times, ultimately singing “All I want is your beautiful legs around me/On that Spanish beach where you found me for the rest of my earthly days.” But this feeling comes between trying to make peace with a troubled past and looking at it with a new filter that allows for forgiveness and a different perspective.
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“The robot killed the working man”
Brian looks at industrialization and is in favor of deciding that technological progress is not always for the better. The title pretty much lays out the premise, but he goes further by singing, “Took the hammer and nails out of his hands/Sealed the coffin/Sold the land.” The track begins with a sample of wrestler Dusty Rhodes’ famous 1985 speech about the difficult times before Bryan took over and a scathing indictment of what it takes to progress. “This place doesn’t look the same as it did when I was a kid/Can’t you see what a huge step forward that’s been for humanity?” The focus here is entirely on the song’s lyrics, which are driven by a steady, sustained mid-tempo rumble.
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“You will meet”
In this affable, sloppy set, Brian departs the listener with a benediction of sorts, filled with advice delivered by an unspecified “he”, who suggests that life will go well if you’re kind “when it ain’t easy”, as well as “take the telephone off the line for a while” and “don’t tell them Oklahoma ain’t in the South.”
Musically, the song has a similar feel to The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” and leaves the listener with a slight sadness, but also a sense of comfort that it might all work out after all.
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“Lodi when”
This track brings to two the number of rock songs with “Lodi” in the title, following Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Lodi”. (Fun fact: John Fogerty is playing some dates with Brian in 2027, so maybe they’ll do a mix of the CCR hit and this track.) This serves as a catchy set opener, primarily due to the group vocals that surround Brian’s plaintive vocals, the catchy melody, and the interesting swirling synth opener.
Lyrically, the song questions if you could go back in time, would you make the same choices? As the clock slows down, he asks, “If you could go back to the places you once went/Would you run back into her arms or back to Lodi.”
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“Lies” (featuring Lana Del Rey)
Bryan has a history of being a smooth duet partner, especially with female artists, such as with Kacey Musgraves on “I Remember Everything”. This mid-tempo effort with Del Rey is gorgeous, backed by swell violins and cello. Like Musgraves, Del Rey is a naturally laid-back singer and neither she nor the vulnerable-sounding Bryan try to oversell the songs, instead allowing the emotional devastation about a crumbling relationship to easily unfold as their voices veer around each other. It doesn’t have the same impact as “I Remember Everything”, but it’s beautiful in its own way.
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“bad days”
The motivational track begins with a spoken line from the 2012 film, the place Beyond the Pines“If you ride like lightning, you’ll crash like thunder,” says Brian, before exploding into an up-tempo track with a relentless beat and a passionate delivery. “The day I was born they told me I’d never amount to anything,” he sings and his voice reveals he’s spent every day since then leaning against a wall, “everything you did was misunderstood.” It’s one of the shortest songs on the album, but it’s exceptional for its intensity and drive (and yes, he even makes some dog barking noises). His harmonica playing is also welcome.