You’ve got to love an artist who says he was brought up on a crawfish farm in Louisiana. It certainly sounds a lot cooler than growing up around a semi in the West Midlands. But John Hollier is far more than a good backstory.
After moving to Nashville to learn how to write songs, he says he quickly learned what he wasn’t. What he was, though, ran much deeper than that — those Louisiana roots were never going anywhere. And that grounding feeds directly into John Hollier & The Rêverie. The band name, French for “to dream”, hints at the ambition behind Rainmaker, but Hollier is also refreshingly honest about why this record matters.
“The live show is where I feel we’ve been able to really latch on to an identity. I don’t feel like the previous record captured that identity,” Hollier says candidly. “In terms of standing out, I think the show quickly outpaced that album. This new record is a true representation of the past two years.”
Right from the off, Rainmaker makes good on that promise. “Gonna Love You” has a lot more going on than you might expect, all big-hearted and expansive, and it’s not hard to think of the E Street Band when the sound starts to swell.
“If She’s Lonely” matches superb songwriting with real energy, and Hollier’s voice feels like the kind of gift that only comes from somewhere deep in the soul. Then there’s “Holding Too Tight”, where the horns are used perfectly as the groove rolls along — the guitar lines are spot on, and the sax solo though is, shall we say reminiscent of when the big man joined the band.
The mood shifts on “Crashing”, which drifts in late-night and lugubrious, before “Can’t Say No Tonight” dives headfirst into that moment where lust overrides common sense — you know the one.
“Rival” stretches things out further, widescreen and ambitious, but “Saturday Night Polly” pulls it back with a grin, full of the sort of joy that feels like the best Saturday night you’ve ever had.
Love sits firmly at the centre of “Never See Me Again”, a song country bands the world over would kill to write. Then “Somewhere Down the Road” offers a more reflective moment as Hollier sings about “nowhere towns that have lost hope” and admits “this don’t feel like rock n roll.” It’s the sort of line that suggests life on the road isn’t always the glamour people imagine.
The title track “Rainmaker” is the big statement — proper rock ’n’ roll with everything everywhere all at once — before “Lonesome Highway Waltz” takes a more considered, even restrained approach, its beauty lying in the poetry of the moment.
Finally, “Hollow Heart” feels written straight from the heart as much as from the heartland.
If that time in Nashville taught him what he wasn’t, then let me tell you what John Hollier and The Rêverie are: exceptional. And if the goal here was to capture the energy of the live show, they’ve done exactly that. Rainmaker doesn’t just promise a storm — it whips one up.
RATING: 9/10
