"When [Bryan] landed a major-label deal, he decided to go big. Very, very big, as it turns out. American Heartbreak is a whopping 34 songs, amounting to two hours and two minutes of music - longer than any album this side of the Clash's Sandinista or Prince's Emancipation. Like those two records, American Heartbreak winds up reflecting its era ... It's a clearinghouse for everything the Red Dirt troubadour has completed, whether it's a rollicking rocker like "Whiskey Fever" or a lazily soulful rendition of the Jimmie Davis standard "You Are My Sunshine." ... On an individual basis, the songs are striking. Collectively, American Heartbreak can be a little hard to digest, especially in one sitting: it's a little too much of a good thing, the sounds all bleeding together in an amiable fashion. Parse the songs out into user-constructed playlists, though - or take it as a series of 20-minute EPs - and it's hard not to be impressed with the sturdiness of Bryan's music, how he keeps the dusty literary traditions of Red Dirt troubadours alive without affectation".
