Zach Bryan: “Lies” [ft. Lana Del Rey] Track Review

Has Zach Bryan always sounded this much like Hozier? The question’s unavoidable listening to “Lies,” Bryan’s weepy new piano-and-strings duet with Lana Del Rey. Fresh off an EP titled Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs, the song lines up a straight shot at “timeless,” then misfires into “dated.” I’m transported alright—far, far away from the Grand Ole Opry. No, I’m under the fluorescent LEDs of an H&M dressing room circa 2013, where “Take Me to Church” is playing back to back with “Same Love” and Rihanna’s “Stay.” Even worse: Most of Bryan’s lyrics are either borrowed wholesale (“Tell me your lies, baby, sweet little lies,” goes the hook) or nigh-inscrutable (“Shameless when it comes to your sex and your guilt”…?)

Traditionally, Lana’s verse would be our chance to hear the woman’s perspective in all this. Yet her inclusion feels totally impromptu, like she and Bryan just got called up for their turn at karaoke and didn’t have a chance to work out the harmonies. To her credit, Del Rey’s airy delivery elides the more tortured scansion in lines like, “Tell me everything that you ever said was just another excuse for what you meant instead.” But compare “Lies” and “Henry, come on,” the gloriously maudlin ballad that presaged her perpetually waylaid country album, Stove: That song gleamed like polished silver, pocked with the intimate details and recurring fights that characterize a threadbare love affair. The duet partners in “Lies” are singing right past each other. It’s not heartbreaking, just a little sad.