Review: The Toms self-titled album – reissue

Album Review

The Toms

By Ljubinko Zivkovic, Rock At Night Amsterdam


Review: The Toms – The Toms –
Reissue release: March 10, 2023 

The Toms

It is always unpredictable which album or artist will get the attention they truly deserve, and even back in 1979, at the height of power pop The Toms self-titled album seems to have registered only with the hardcore fans of the genre. Luckily, someone among those hardcore fans, that seems to include one Richie Sambora, remembered this album now and have helped with its deserved reissue. 

The Toms was actually a single artist affair, done by one Tom Marolda, a New Jersey musician who recorded the whole album in his home studio, singing and playing everything by himself. 

Usually with such one-man projects there is at least one aspect where the artist would have benefited from help of someone more capable at a certain instrument than himself. Yet Marolda seems not to have missed a beat on the tracks that comprised the original album. He concentrates on his excellent melodies and lets the vocals do the main job, this covering anything that the instrumental parts might have missed, which it seems they didn’t. 

To make this reissue even more palpable, there are 11 additional tracks here, including the closing track ‘The Flame’ sung by Herman Hermit’s lead singer and main man Peter Noone. 

For any try power pop fan this is unmissable. Actually, those not favoring power pop that much should give it a spin too, they just might be surprised. 

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The 1979 Sessions

Ljubinko Zivkovic