Zach Bryan Announces Surprise Acoustic Version Of ‘With Heaven On Top’: Why More Artists Need To Do This

I selfishly think this is a requirement every artist should have to follow…

Minutes ago, Zach Bryan shared the official 25-song tracklist for his album that’s dropping tomorrow With Heaven On Top, which he’s been teasing for a while now and sharing tons of clips of the songs on Instagram and other social media platforms.

In the Instagram post below, he shared that the album will have 25 songs, along with showing the full tracklist which can be found on the back of the album cover for the vinyls of the record:

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He has teased a lot of the music online, but with 25 songs to listen through, there’s of course going to be a lot for fans to dive into and tons of new material too.

But if you want to hear just a taste of some of the tracklist, he also shared an album teaser with clips of the studio cut of every single song, which you can listen to hear:

It’s going to be one of the biggest releases of 2026, and I know fans have been patiently waiting for Bryan to put out another full length album, as the most recent, full-length album he out out was The Great American Bar Scene in 2024.

But this is more of a two-for-one deal, because he also just revealed that he’s also putting out an accompanying acoustic album with all of the same songs on Monday, three days after With Heaven On Top drops tomorrow.

He explained that he’s already anticipating that fans will complain about the production being too sleek and the sound in general, so he decided to just go ahead and release raw recordings, mistakes included, to satisfy which ever style his fans prefer:

“I’m assuming this record is just like all the other ones and there’s gonna be a billion people saying it’s over produced and s***** so I sat down in a room by myself and recorded all the songs acoustically so I didn’t have to hear everyone whine about more stuff.

There’s mistakes and I didn’t redo any of them but this’ll be out three days after ‘With Heaven On Top’ drops tomorrow. This was a painting hanging on the wall that we recorded all the songs in when we got there.”

To be honest, most of Zach’s music is already super stripped down and lo-fi, so it’s hard to imagine people complain that much about it being over-produced. I mean, it’s kind of his signature sound, but must admit, I love this concept.

I almost always prefer the acoustic, raw versions of pretty much any song, especially the ones with great lyrics, because it really allows the essence of the song to shine, and so I would love it if this was a requirement for all country artists going forward. Or at least something more artists considered. It’s become pretty standard for big names to add a deluxe edition with a few (sometimes more than a few) throwaway songs that didn’t make the album, but how about acoustic instead? I know that’s not realistic, but a girl can dream… it would basically be like putting the original demos out.

Even for a huge artist like Morgan Wallen whose music is extremely produced and edited, I think it would do really well. He has done little series here and there with acoustic versions of his songs, and I love them so much more than what ends up on his album usually, so I can only hope this is a trend more artists can jump onto… it might be the only trend in music worth chasing, in my humble opinion.

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With Heaven On Top Tracklist

1. “Down, Down, Stream”
2. “Runny Eggs”
3. “Appetite”
4. “Deann’s Denim”
5. “Say Why”
6. “Drowning”
7. “Santa Fe”
8. “Skin”
9. “Dry Deserts”
10. “Bad News”
11. “South and Pine”
12. “Cannonball”
13. “Slicked Back”
14. “anyways”
15. “If They Come Lookin'”
16. “Rivers and Creeks”
17. “Plastic Cigarette”
18. “You Can Still Come Home”
19. “Aeroplane”
20. “Always Willin'”
21. “Miles”
22. “all Goo Things Past”
23. “Camper”
24. “Sundown Girls”
25. “With Heaven On Top”