Hayden Haddock has just released his latest track, Better Than Your Memory. This is a 3 minute, radio friendly blast of superb red dirt genre music.
This song comes in and lets you know right from the get go what you are to expect. The style, the intro, the chord sequence and even the instrumentation is on point for the genre. There’s no crossing genres here. This is pure Texas Red Dirt.
Hayden captures the genre perfectly with tremendous backing vocals that come in for the chorus.
The fiddle and slide guitar are expertly played, and subtly add in the odd riff here and there between vocal lines. This maintained my interest. Later on, a honky tonk style piano comes in and, in my opinion, steals the show. It fits just perfectly.
The simple bassline and powerful drums keep the song moving along and hold everything in place. The kick drum is nice and present without being too clicky.
I particularly liked the break down section. Great rim click detail on the drums almost sound like a horse plodding along… all adding to that country feel.
Production-wise in my opinion, a long high shelf EQ increase in top 3 octaves would balance frequencies out a little and add brightness and presence to the overall track.
I can see why Hayden is so popular. His music is that predictable style of red dirt country that many listeners absolutely love. He does it extremely well and I can see this sitting well with the likes of Kevin Fowler, et al. Great job!
We give this track four ears out of five
