By the time of their fourth album,
\nTake No Prisoners<\/i>, Jacksonville, Florida-based Molly Hatchet
\nwas undergoing their trial by fire. They had experienced the
\ndeparture of vocalist Danny Joe Brown after
\nFlirtin’ With Disaster<\/i>, and new vocalist Jimmy Farrar seemed
\nto polarize Molly Hatchet’s fans. Add into this the fact that
\nSouthern rock was quickly fading in popularity (at least in terms
\nof being the next big flavor of the month), and you had a band who
\nneeded to re-position themselves on a course of success.<\/p>\n
This is where things are a little confusing, at least for me.
\nTake No Prisoners<\/i> is a definite improvement over their
\nprevious disc
\nBeatin’ The Odds<\/i>, and when Molly Hatchet succeeds, they do
\nso with flying colors. But their missteps are spectacular failures,
\nleaving this disc (which is currently out of print) a decidedly
\nmixed bag.<\/p>\n
First things first, though. Farrar has definitely shown that he
\nwas able to grow in his role in the band, as his vocals show marked
\nimprovement over
\nBeatin’ The Odds<\/i>. (Too bad this disc would be his swan song
\nwith the band.) Listen to tracks like “Lady Luck,” “Power Play” or
\neven the all-out rocker “Bloody Reunion” which opens this disc, and
\nyou’ll know that Farrar feels more at home with this material.<\/p>\n
In fact, the material on
\nTake No Prisoners<\/i> which stands out is truly amazing —
\nmaking one wonder why this disc is not available at this particular
\ntime. Check out songs like “Dead Giveaway” or “Loss Of Control” and
\nyou’ll quickly come to realize that Molly Hatchet was most
\ndefinitely back on track.<\/p>\n
Yet despite all of the advances in the music, there are two
\ninstances of weakness — and oh, how weak they are. “Respect Me In
\nThe Morning” starts out promising, but quickly dissolves into a
\nhe-said-she-said mush of pop tripe, not even worthy of your time.
\nLikewise, I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to start
\nout “Long Tall Sally” as a slow-tempoed plodder, but all interest
\nis lost by the time the band finally kicks this song into
\nhigh-gear. In retrospect, this was probably not the best cover
\nchoice for the band — in fact, four albums into their career, why
\ndid they even need to resort to cover versions of songs?<\/p>\n
Yes, these two weak songs threaten to derail the whole album,
\nbut the fact is that
\nTake No Prisoners<\/i> is a more solid effort than these two
\nmisfires. If anything, this disc not only cements Molly Hatchet’s
\nreputation as a solid rock outfit, but it also should have removed
\nany misgivings about Farrar’s position in the band. Regrettably,
\nthe latter would not prove to be true, as Farrar left following
\nthis disc — leaving the door open to Brown’s return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5906],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37945","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-molly-hatchet","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37945","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=37945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37945"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}