Strange. Molly Hatchet is celebrating its 25th anniversary
\ntogether, and the present lineup (or, as I call them, the second
\niteration of the band) has three studio albums under its belt, all
\nrecorded as Bobby Ingram and company try to find their own unique
\nvoice. So what would compel them to re-record a whole slew of songs
\nfrom the Danny Joe Brown era of Molly Hatchet?<\/p>\n
\n25th Anniversary Best Of Re-Recorded<\/i> most certainly lives up
\nto its name, taking songs from every studio album up to
\nLightning Strikes Twice<\/i> (the last featuring Brown as lead
\nvocalist) and gives them the new lineup’s spin on them. There are
\nno surprises here, and the covers of these songs are respectable
\nenough. But one does have to wonder just what the entire point
\nwas.<\/p>\n
Vocalist Phil McCormack, the hand-picked successor to Brown in
\nMolly Hatchet, sounds uncannily like Brown on these tracks, even if
\nhe doesn’t have the vocal range for some of the higher notes. (In
\nhis defense, he compensates well for this.) Ingram is undoubtedly
\nthe flashiest guitarist the band has ever had, and that’s not a bad
\nthing, for he keeps the band’s heart pumping.<\/p>\n
Long-time Molly Hatchet fans will undoubtedly hear differences
\nbetween the re-recordings and the originals, but even the diehards
\namong the crowd will have to admit that the covers are delivered
\nquite well. Sure, tracks like “Flirtin’ With Disaster” and “Whiskey
\nMan” are familiar opuses, but the level of respect the newer
\nincarnation of the band has for the material is evident. And it is
\npleasing to hear such favorites as “Fall Of The Peacemakers,”
\n“Bounty Hunter” and “Dreams I’ll Never See” again, even if two of
\nthe three were given the acoustic treatment by this lineup not
\nterribly long ago.<\/p>\n
There are some stumbling blocks, as well. The version of
\n“Satisfied Man” doesn’t quite measure up to the original from
\nThe Deed Is Done<\/i>, while “25th Anniversary Song” is an
\nabsolute throw-away number which should have been left in the
\nvaults. Likewise, “Goodbye To Love” doesn’t spark the excitement
\nthat one would have expected, while “Beatin’ The Odds,” a marginal
\nsong in its heyday, doesn’t leave the starting gate.<\/p>\n
Yet one has to wonder why Molly Hatchet chose to revisit the
\npast so blatantly on
\n25th Anniversary Best Of Re-Recorded<\/i> instead of offering up
\na platter’s worth of new material. After all, the band had just
\ndelivered the live set
\nLocked And Loaded<\/i>, which covered some of these bases
\nalready. Molly Hatchet’s place in the annals of rock history is
\nsecure, even if they haven’t made it to the main hall just yet.
\nWouldn’t it have been great to hear McCormack, Ingram and crew to
\nput out a disc featuring material which flirted with those glory
\ndays, rather than continue to re-tread the same paths?<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong,
\n25th Anniversary Best Of Re-Recorded<\/i> is a pleasurable enough
\ndisc, and it should have the power to draw in new fans as well as
\nre-introduce older fans to some material they may have forgotten.
\nBut the cynic in me is thinking that this disc is the ultimate
\nexperience for those who don’t want to leave their homes to see
\nMolly Hatchet in concert, since all the tracks you’d want to hear
\nare on this disc.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5906],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37963","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\/37963","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=37963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37963"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37963"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}