Artist: Bill Toms & Hard Rain
Album: Keep Movin’ On
Label: Terraplane
Release Date: 4.30.21
The traveling medicine show known as Bill Toms & Hard Rain is determined to Keep Movin’ On, as their 10th studio album offers a miracle cure for the pandemic blues, rather than a batch of useless snake oil. Appealing to the better angels of our nature in a time of such profound loss and despair, it needs a busload of faith to get by, with apologies to Lou Reed, and it does so with the feel-good medicine of its soul-stirring rock ‘n roll grit and warm R&B sophistication.
Aided by the wonders of technology, Bill Toms & Hard Rain overcame obstacles of distance and isolation during lockdown to assemble and record these heartfelt songs of hope and perseverance, somehow managing to make it all sound full and cohesive in the process. Having the rich, wonderfully arranged brass of The Soulville Horns on hand is a blessing, as they bring vibrancy and color to the bluesy Latin grooves and cascading piano of “Everybody’s Talking” and flood the gnarled, yet uplifting, “Still Got Love” with light, while adding nuanced charm to the soft, yearning, pop-soul incandescence of a comforting “Come to Me.” It’s like a blanket made by Motown in the ‘60s.
The earnest, everyman quality that makes Bruce Springsteen so relatable also resides in Toms’ solid songwriting, even if the lyrics are not as poetic, but more plainspoken. Evocative of The Boss’s passion and flair for the dramatic, slowly rendered, martial ballads such as a dreamy “Man’s Soul is on Trial” and the earthier “American Dreamer” seek to mend the nation’s fractured body politic, although the gradually building, effusive title track is more melodically satisfying. For something a little stronger, try the swaggering blues-rock of “Ain’t No Walking Back” and “Walk in My Shoes,” or the dark, gently rippling noir of an intoxicating “Business on a Higher Ground.”
The gravel-voiced Toms cut his teeth as lead guitarist for Pittsburgh institution Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers, starting out with them in 1987. Produced by the iconic Rick Witkowski, Keep Movin’ On and its amazing grace shows that lessons learned from the experience haven’t been forgotten by Toms.
—Peter Lindblad
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