Hadden Sayers - Dopamine Machine (2018)

We haven’t heard from Hadden Sayers in five years, since his Blue Corn release Rolling Soul, where the combination of his gift for song and his crafty guitar playing proved irresistible. Prior to that, Sayers received a Blues Award nomination on his 2011 release Hard Dollar. Now the Texan has taken the self-release route with his Dopamine Machine project. It consists of separate electric and acoustic CDs with the same 11 tunes, albeit in a different order on the acoustic one. It’s the electric one, by far, that proves most worthy.

Despite the hiatus, this is Sayers’ ninth studio recording. He left Austin to record in Nashville with the notable session players Greg Morrow on drums, Johnny Neel on organ and Rusty McFarland on bass, acoustic guitar, and percussion. Sayers delivers amped-up, wall-shaking blues-rock on several tunes but finds a balance too, reflecting strong songwriting. Sayers still holds down the guitar chair in Ruthie Foster’s band and she joins for harmonies on “Waiting, Wanting.”

Sayers, commenting on the album, says it “is more from-the-heart than any of my other releases. It was written and recorded without any concern for what genre it may fit into. That lack of concern for how I fit into the music world made recording even more inspiring than it already is for me and it shows.” He describes the impetus for each of the tunes in the liners, indicating the location of the writing too. We’ll highlight a few of them. The first three tracks hold nothing back. He cites the second track, “I Feel Love,” as the impetus for this album, mentioning that he had heard too many Americana mellow love songs and he wanted to add rock. “Blood Red Coupe Deville” slows it all down to a soulful blues, inspired by listening to a spoken word stream-of-consciousness rant by Warren Zevon, describing a night he spent with Hunter S. Thompson.

“Waiting, Wanting” was written aboard the Legendary Rhythm & Blues cruise while anchored off Cabo San Lucas. There’s a combination of atmospheric guitar sounds, the rich harmony from Ruthie Foster, and a lullaby quality that Sayers intended for his son. The title track, a rather simple ditty, is about addiction, specifically to a cell phone, but it could work on other levels too. “Gravity,” a tune about aging, is the best crafted tune on the album. “Peppermint Patty” and “Backbreaker” show his explosive rocking side.

Hadden Sayers succeeds in delivering a slashing, hard rocking album but listen closely. It’s still his songwriting that sets him apart from others in that camp. —Jim Hynes