"If you're honest and open, he will write you a song," sings Zac Brown in "Martin," an ode to his acoustic guitar. Honesty and openness are articles of faith for Brown, whose smash 2008 single, "Chicken Fried," made him an overnight country star. He specializes in high-earnest homespun: woodsy songs with three-part-harmony vocals and lyrics full of folksy homilies. Brown is a fine guitarist who sings with husky warmth, and the ZBB have jam-band chops and a songwriterly knack for hooks. But just when you're starting to enjoy the sound, another of Brown's two-bit life lessons — "Hear what the land has to say/Quiet your mind" — hits with a thud.

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“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”