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                                                                      JACOB BRYANT

                                                               "Devil & an Old Six String" 

                                                               American Roots Records/Thirty Tigers

 

 

 

 

Whenever an artist has a real-life story that they live out through their music, there is automatically an instant raw honesty that gets injected into it.

Such is the case with Jacob Bryant – the outlaw country rocker who has leaned on music over the last decade to help battle the depression and anxiety that set in after his mother’s passing, which triggered him to travel down a dark road consisting of drugs and alcohol.

With his new song, “Devil & and Old Six String,” Jacob Bryant not only invites us into his forthcoming album Bar Stool Preacher, but he also faces his past while paying tribute to how music has saved his life.

On the follow-up to “Amen,” Jacob Bryant gives us a lot of the signatures that define him as an artist from his gritty vocals to shredding guitars that grab you through the bridge. But it’s the lyrics that are the true shining light on this tune as Bryant is completely transparent through them.

“I didn’t have to drink like Hank or smoke like Willie did,” opens the song and instantly grabs your attention with the country icon namechecks, as Bryant then gives way to lines that sing of how guitar picking helped him ease his pain, how he made his life harder than it had to be through actions which ultimately led to a divorce, etc.

While the verses see Bryant mostly looking back on his life, the chorus shows us how it shaped him into who he is in the here and now by bringing us straight into the present day as he sings over a choir like atmosphere: 

“I need these neon lights

Cause that’s the only damn thing that gets me high

If I’m barely making it on a broken wing

Blame it on the devil & my old six string.”

Looking in the mirror, accepting who you are, and then perfectly accenting the struggle of the battle between what you need and all you’ll lose because of it, makes “Devil & and Old Six String” the type of song that can take an artist to an entirely different level of success – And I believe Jacob Bryant is heading into that chapter of his career on the back of this song and his forthcoming album.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

 

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