Zac Brown Band – The Owl (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Zac Brown Band – The Owl (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 37:41 minutes | 436 MB | Genre: Country
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BMG Rights Management (US) LLC

The Owl marks ZBB’s first new music since releasing “Someone I Used to Know” in November of 2018. The group have released a new digital single from the forthcoming album, “Leaving Love Behind.” According to a press release, the album title is “inspired by the lore surrounding the great horned owl, which can see perfectly at night, making it a reliable guide, even during dark times.” The group drew on that to create “their most personal album to date.”

The Owl features collaborations with artists from across the musical spectrum, including Skrillex, Andrew Watt, Jason “Poo Bear” Boyd, Max Martin, Benny Blanco, Ryan Tedder and more.

“We’ve been working tirelessly on this album over the past couple years, ensuring every detail is perfect,” Zac Brown states. “We are always pushing ourselves as musicians by blurring genre boundaries and incorporating all kinds of music we are personally inspired by, elevating what we are capable as a group. This album will have something for everyone, The Owl is exciting, raw and unexpected. We couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve accomplished on this record and can’t wait to finally share it with the fans.”

The ghost of Sir Rosevelt looms over The Owl. Zac Brown’s dance side project released an album soon after Welcome Home, the 2017 album from the Zac Brown Band, but it was buried, not even making an appearance on Billboard’s Top 400. Brown didn’t interpret this lack of success as rejection. Instead, he decided to push the Zac Brown Band firmly into pop, inviting Max Martin, Ryan Tedder, Poo Bear, and Skrillex into the studio to collaborate. This list of premium pop and dance producers suggests that The Owl is a far cry from the downhome charms of the Dave Cobb-produced Welcome Home, and that’s true. The Owl gleams like a shiny new trinket from an upscale mall, its individual songs designed to ease onto any playlist you’d fancy. Nominally country, The Owl often throbs to electronic rhythms and is slathered in synths, to the point where even a funky blues number like “Me and the Boys in the Band” is polished so it could be considered pop. Unlike so many pop moves from country artists, The Owl is executed cleverly, never renouncing the core elements of the Zac Brown Band: “Shoofly Pie” is a loose-limbed rocker designed to keep the crowds moving during the mid-set, and “Leaving Love Behind” leans into Brown’s James Taylor side. These cozy numbers just happen to be anomalies on The Owl. The rest of the record finds Brown defiantly bringing the glitzy party sensibility of Sir Rosevelt into the Zac Brown Band, getting his main group to play EDM rhythms, take a detour into rap, and play a ballad co-written by Shawn Mendes. The fact that a good chunk of the numbers work does not erase how deeply strange this album is. A band who once celebrated the simple pleasures of toes in the sand are now singing about champagne glasses filled with diamonds and, no matter how many times The Owl is spun, it’s impossible to tell how they got to this point. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tracklist:
1. Zac Brown Band – The Woods (03:14)
2. Zac Brown Band – Need This (02:38)
3. Zac Brown Band – OMW (03:20)
4. Zac Brown Band – Someone I Used to Know (03:29)
5. Zac Brown Band – Me and the Boys in the Band (04:40)
6. Zac Brown Band – Finish What We Started (feat. Brandi Carlile) (03:35)
7. Zac Brown Band – God Given (02:51)
8. Zac Brown Band – Warrior (03:22)
9. Zac Brown Band – Shoofly Pie (03:37)
10. Zac Brown Band – Already On Fire (02:57)
11. Zac Brown Band – Leaving Love Behind (03:54)

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