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Photo: Lucas Creighton / Neil Krug
SingleZach Bryan has released "Lies", featuring Lana Del Rey, a slow piano duet from Young Manhood and Other Donatable Organs, his new EP of eight songs. It sits third on the record, and both singers are credited as its writers. The song opens with piano and a bright string arrangement while he takes the first verse. A quiet laugh from his guest can be heard in the background before she sings a verse of her own, and the two close the song in harmony.
The lyrics build the whole song around one request. Each chorus asks a lover for "sweet little lies", admitting that "truth means nothing when you look this way". Near the end the request flips, and the pair sings that they want the truth "when it's hardest to say, even if it means that you're leaving". A small section of violins and cellos plays around the two voices.
Like the rest of the EP, the duet was recorded in Nashville at Easy Eye Sound, the studio owned by Dan Auerbach, singer and guitarist of the Black Keys. The record also includes "Plainsman", made with Turnpike Troubadours, a country band from his home state of Oklahoma, a pairing fans had rumored before the release. His label describes the record as full of "unexpected sonic and emotional twists and turns" and calls the duet itself "beautifully uncanny". It also presents the EP as a picture of his growth as an artist, captured in real time.
For Del Rey, the guest spot is her first new music since "White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter", the solo single she put out earlier this year. She hinted at the title on Instagram before the release and wrote in the caption, "Whale, we finally got our song done. And that's no Lie". Meanwhile, she is still finishing Stove, which she first announced more than two years ago. She has since told fans it will arrive together with a second, companion album and signed off with "Thank you for waiting". That would be her first album since Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, which came out in 2023 and was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys. The album and its songs earned her five nominations at the 2024 Grammys, and she has 11 Grammy nominations without a win.
The EP comes nine months after With Heaven on Top, the 25-song album Bryan released in January. He has spent much of this year on the road, and one of the new songs, "Backwards", was already a favorite at his shows. He will tour the new songs on a stadium run across North America and Australia named after the EP, which opens next year in Minneapolis. Creedence Clearwater Revival singer John Fogerty joins him as a special guest on the first leg of the run.
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