Overshadowed by Canada's new rock hero Bryan Adams, Ian Thomas couldn't find any comfort in the mid-'80s as he attempted to further his career with the lackluster
Riders on Dark Horses album. Thomas' previous album
The Runner was much stronger, lending "Hold On" to
Santana, who took it to number 15 and the title track to
Manfred Mann's Earth Band, who revamped it for their
Somewhere in Afrika release. But this recording finds Thomas out of touch and stale, relying heavily on his heartfelt lyrics and his own personal viewpoints to solely boost his material. This may have worked for Thomas in the '70s, but tracks like "The Crossing," "She Don't Love You," and his obligatory social statement "Progress" sound cliché and rather trite by this point. Thomas hired Montreal's
Aldo Nova to add some guitar bite to a few of the cuts, but the overall package still comes up short. The poppy "I'll Do You Right" may be the closest Thomas comes to sounding hip, and he took that song's recipe and stretched it out across the course of his next release, the slightly improved Add Water, which came out in 1985. By the end of the decade, Thomas had expired his solo career, and in 1991 he formed
the Boomers with
Rick Gratton,
Rough Trade's former drummer,
Bill Dillon, and
Peter Cardinali. ~ Mike DeGagne