Zach Bryan confesses past traumas in new album

Zach Bryan is getting deeply personal on his new album, With Heaven on Top.

The Grammy-winning singer, 29, released his sixth studio album on January 9. Across 25 songs, Bryan reflects on heartbreak, his new marriage to Samantha Leonard, and his journey to sobriety.

On the track Skin, Bryan appears to reference an ex, singing, “I’m taking a blade to my own skin/And I ain’t ever touching yours again,” and asking, “Do you love people just to win when it’s over?” 

He also adds, “Do you still talk s--- on all of your friends?/Need to take it all to the chin this time stone-cold sober.”

Fans believe the song points to Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia, whom Bryan split from in October 2024.

LaPaglia later accused him of emotional abuse and claimed he offered her $12 million and a house to stay silent. Bryan has not publicly addressed the allegations.

On Plastic Cigarette, he sings about meeting someone “evil” in Queens, where the former couple first met: “My brother had told me to leave but I didn’t believe the evil beneath some people you meet out in Queens.”

Bryan contrasts that past with songs celebrating Leonard, whom he married in Spain on New Year’s Eve. In Slicked Back, he sings, “When I get to hell or heaven, can I bring my girl?” and praises her love of “romance, good sex, music and ruling the world.”

He also reflects on sobriety and fatherhood. On Appetite, he sings, “Everyone I know got older/Told my drunk ass to get sober,” adding, “What if I don’t want children that grow up like their father?”

Bryan announced in November that he was two months sober. He also briefly references his 2023 arrest on the title track: “Spend a night in jail after pissing off a cop.”

With Heaven on Top was written and produced by Bryan in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He begins a world tour in March and will release an acoustic version of the album three days later.