Every once in a while, a veteran artist manages to tap into a new creative wellspring, discovers an exciting sound, and the floodgates open. Such was the case for Mando Saenz on his latest release, All My Shame. On this dynamic new album, Saenz fully embraces his pop and classic rock influences for the first time in his career – while still staying true to his Texas songwriting roots. It’s a bold new statement for the Nashville-based artist, and the culmination of his career as a journeyman writer and musician. Having spent nearly fifteen years as a professional musician, Saenz knows the highs and lows of the songwriter’s life as well as anyone. He’s seen his industry — and adopted hometown — radically transformed during the last decade, as gentrification and the streaming music economy take hold and musical preferences change. Yet you can still find him holding court and playing live at old Nashville haunts like Bobby’s Idle Hour. Saenz, who grew up in various locales across the US as an Army brat, cut his musical teeth in the Houston alt-country scene of the early aughts, writing in the story-song tradition of Lone Star luminaries like Guy Clark, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Jerry Jeff Walker. His first three solo albums — Watertown (2005), Bucket (2008), and Studebaker (2013) — leaned toward the country-folk stylings of his Texas heroes while sporting an occasional rock tinge. All My Shame retains the sharp, detailed lyricism of those early albums, while confidently moving into the poppier, more melodic realms of Tom Petty, Big Star, Ron Sexsmith, and indie stalwarts the Shins.