The Owl is the sixth studio album by American country music band Zac Brown Band. It was released on September 20, 2019, through Wheelhouse Records.
Contents
Content
It is described as the band's "most personal album to date". For this album, the band worked with pop and EDM writer and producers such as Poo Bear, Shawn Mendes, Max Martin, Benny Blanco, Ryan Tedder, and Skrillex. One of the tracks features a collaboration with Brandi Carlile.
Critical reception
Kelly Dearmore of the blog Sounds Like Nashville gave a largely negative review, criticizing the lack of country sound relative to the band's preceding albums and comparing many songs negatively to Brown's electronica side project Sir Rosevelt. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic also noted parallels to the Sir Rosevelt album. He concluded his review with "The fact that a good chunk of the numbers work does not erase how deeply strange this album is."
Pip Ellwood-Hughes of Entertainment Focus gave a negative review stating, "Zac Brown Band have shown what they can do in the past and this set of songs doesn't come close. If this were the debut album of a new pop band, it may be received kindlier but this is a misjudged project from a beloved Country band that attempts to push boundaries but will likely just turn their fans off."
Commercial performance
The Owl debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 106,000 album-equivalent units, including 99,000 pure album sales. It is Zac Brown Band's sixth US top 10 album. The album has sold 137,100 copies in the United States as of March 2020.
Personnel
Zac Brown Band
Zac Brown – lead vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
Coy Bowles – electric guitar, electric slide guitar, Hammond organ
Clay Cook – background vocals, clavinet, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric slide guitar, Fender Rhodes, Hammond organ, Mellotron, pedal steel guitar, piano, tambourine, Wurlitzer
Daniel de los Reyes – percussion
Jimmy De Martini – acoustic guitar, background vocals, banjo, cello, electric guitar, violin
Chris Fryar – drums
John Driskell Hopkins – background vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo
Matt Mangano – acoustic and electric bass guitars, Moog bass, acoustic guitar
Additional musicians
Production