The Hard Stuff - Billboard review

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Anyone in search of straight-ahead rock'n'roll and blues will find a robust plateful of blood-red meat and potatoes here. With a dynamic range running from frenetic to ferocious, George Thorogood does not disappoint. A dead-on mix, rightfully treating "restraint" as a dirty word, turns the title cut into arguably the most have-no-mercy rocker Thorogood has ever attacked in his 12-album, 30-year career. Even the slow blues "Little Rain" delivers a sax ride to stir the dead, and "Any Town USA" is pile-driving Thorogood at his best. Any nit-pickers complaining that he has been largely remaking the same record for three decades might as well have asked Muddy Waters why his three-chord blues only had three chords. Thankfully, Thorogood shows not the slightest inclination to reinvent the wheel, happy to keep rolling down the hard-rocking road of which he is a master. —Gordon Ely