Lineup changes in any band are funny things, no matter what the
\ncircumstances are. Sometimes, the change is so organic that the
\nlistener would be hard-pressed to know the difference. Other times,
\nthe change is so obvious that one has to wonder whether they’re
\nlistening to the same band.<\/p>\n
Molly Hatchet’s first documented line-up change couldn’t have
\nhappened at a worse time. They were riding high on the successes of
\ntheir first two albums when singer Danny Joe Brown left for a solo
\ncareer. In came Jimmy Farrar, who added a touch of blue-eyed soul
\nto the Southern rock core of Molly Hatchet.<\/p>\n
It was a daring experiment, admittedly, but their third album,
\nBeatin’ The Odds<\/i>, is a definite step backwards. With many
\nsolid moments to its credit, a good portion of the Southern twang
\nis removed, leaving Molly Hatchet as a band searching for a
\ngenre.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, long-time fans will argue that Molly Hatchet was
\nunfairly pigeon-holed as a Southern rock band a la Lynyrd Skynyrd,
\nand that they really were a rock band at heart. This may be true,
\nas tracks such as “The Rambler” and “Sailor” suggest. Also, one has
\nto admit that Farrar is not the sole reason that this album is
\ndifferent. True, his vocal style is different than the
\nrough-and-tumble style of Brown’s, and that Farrar seemed to almost
\nadd a layer of gloss to his vocals at times.<\/p>\n
Yet the combination of a new vocalist and a shift in musical
\nstyles from the previous albums does leave
\nBeatin’ The Odds<\/i> pretty much without a musical road map, and
\nthe results turn out to be spotty (though the high points are
\ndefinitely worth the effort). The overall sound is a cross between
\nStreet Survivors<\/i>-era Skynyrd and Johnny Van Zant-era
\nSkynyrd.<\/p>\n
Tracks like “Few And Far Between” do suggest that this new
\npartnership in Molly Hatchet could work well. The guitar interplay
\nof Duane Roland, Dave Hlubek and Steve Holland was still quite
\ntasty, and there was enough Southern funk in this one to keep
\nthings very interesting. Likewise, the ballad style of “The
\nRambler” is both charming and intriguing, making one wonder exactly
\nwhere the song is headed and keeping you locked in throughout the
\njourney.<\/p>\n
Yet one can’t ignore the missteps on this disc. The title track
\nis overly simplistic, and sounds like it was thrown on the disc to
\ntry and pad it out a bit. This is most definitely a song which
\nneeded a couple more coats of paint before it would have been ready
\nfor prime-time. Likewise, “Poison Pen” doesn’t develop into
\nanything special like it seemed it would at the start, and if any
\ntrack called for the use of harmony vocals, this would have been
\nthe one. Let’s not even get into the half-hearted blues of
\n“Penthouse Pauper.”<\/p>\n
Possibly the highlight of this disc, aside from “The Rambler,”
\nwould be “Dead And Gone,” a track which does successfully merge the
\nband’s Southern roots with a more contemporary rock sound and
\ncreates both a powerful rock track and a poignant anti-drug
\nsong.<\/p>\n
\nBeatin’ The Odds<\/i> is undoubtedly a transition album, and some
\nlenience does have to be granted to Molly Hatchet as they tried to
\nright their ship after losing Brown’s talents. But while this one
\nhas its moments, it does leave open the question of what could have
\nbeen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5906],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37943","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-molly-hatchet","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37943"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37943"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}