And then, when Molly Hatchet threw it into sixth gear, the
\nwheels fell off the truck.<\/p>\n
\nThe Deed Is Done<\/i>, the sixth studio effort from Danny Joe
\nBrown and company, features the band’s most polished sound, and
\ntheir leat Southern Rock-sounding effort of their career. I know
\nthat long-time fans of the Jacksonville, Florida-based band will
\nstate that Molly Hatchet was really a rock band all along, and
\nshouldn’t have been pigeon-holed into the Southern Rock genre. But
\nif this is their attempt to break free from that category, it fails
\npoorly.<\/p>\n
Quite possibly this disc will forever be known for the single
\n“Satisfied Man” – a track which I do admit is a guilty pleasure for
\nme. After all, this is what first exposed me to Molly Hatchet when
\nI was 13 (my musical tastes were more limited than your selections
\nat Baskin-Robbins during a heat wave back then), and even if it
\nsounds a bit dated today, it still is able to bring a smile to my
\nface.<\/p>\n
But even this track, the disc’s opener, proves that there are
\nbig changes in store for Molly Hatchet. Gone is the solid guitar
\nattack which the band had become famous for, and in was a more
\nbass, drum and keyboard-driven backbone. Now, I am not about to
\nfault keyboardist John Galvin for this sudden style change – had
\nthis been his first disc with the band, I might have been more
\ninclined, but he had solidly established his presence on
\nNo Guts… No Glory<\/i> – but the change is damned
\nuncomfortable. Tracks like “Backstabber” – good grief, what were
\nthey
\nthinking<\/i> when they did this one?!? – and “She Does She Does”
\nall suggest that not only had Molly Hatchet made a turn down a
\ndifferent road, but they were about to dead-end straight into a
\nbrick wall.<\/p>\n
Things don’t get much better as the album progresses. Tracks
\nsuch as “Man On The Run” and “Heartbreak Radio” all leave the
\nlistener thinking that the days of wine and roses are over for
\nMolly Hatchet. (Indeed, this proved to be their final studio effort
\nfor Epic.)<\/p>\n
But just when you’re about to totally write
\nThe Deed Is Done<\/i> off, Brown and crew pull some surprises out
\nof their collective hats. First is their take on “I Ain’t Got You,”
\nwhich dares to hint at the return of some real boogie to Molly
\nHatchet’s beat. “Straight Shooter” is the track which the listener
\nis forced to wait for, but it almost makes wading through the dreck
\nworth it. This is the kind of song which this disc should have been
\nfeaturing, and is a quick return to form. If only there were more
\nsongs like this on the disc, though it does close out strongly on
\nthe instrumental “Song For The Children”.<\/p>\n
So what happened on
\nThe Deed Is Done<\/i>? Part of the problem might have been the
\nadvent of MTV, and Molly Hatchet could have felt like they were
\nplaying one serious game of catch-up, since they always had been a
\nmusic-based band. Part of the problem could have been the band’s
\ntrying to find a new niche with Southern rock hitting a low in
\nterms of popularity. Part of the problem could have been that the
\nband was simply out of gas at this point. I don’t know. But what I
\ndo know is that
\nThe Deed Is Done<\/i> was solid proof that Molly Hatchet needed
\nto do something to sharpen their collective axes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5906],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-37949","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-molly-hatchet","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37949","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=37949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37949"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37949"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}