People from my age group who grew up during the \u201cglory days\u201d of hard rock and heavy metal might not remember a time when Dokken was not a bigger name band. But, in 1984, that was exactly the case for Don Dokken and crew. The US release of their debut album Breaking The Chains<\/i> hadn\u2019t exactly set the musical world on fire, and they needed to change their fortunes.<\/p>\n
Tooth And Nail<\/i>, Dokken\u2019s sophomore release, still didn\u2019t light the charts on fire, nor did its performance impress their label (to the point they were this\/close to being dropped). But it did gain them some recognition, thanks to the singles \u201cInto The Fire\u201d and \u201cAlone Again.\u201d Overall, the album was a marked improvement over their first effort, but still showed room to grow.<\/i><\/p>\n
Look, I\u2019m not going to lie: Dokken was never one of my favorite bands when I got into heavy metal in high school. Bands like Dokken, Bon Jovi and Poison were on one side of the fence; groups like Metallica and Motorhead were on the other. Only a select few in my teenage years had the maturity to be able to listen to both camps and appreciate what they all had to offer. It wasn\u2019t until I was much older that I gained at least some of that maturity and wisdom.<\/i><\/p>\n
So, while a 15-year-old me might not have been able to appreciate the way that Dokken as a band had gelled (especially with the addition of Jeff Pilson on bass), the 51-year-old me can hear the musical growth that Dokken had undergone in the span of one album. Tracks such as \u201cTooth And Nail,\u201d \u201cJust Got Lucky\u201d and \u201cInto The Fire\u201d all show significant growth, both in terms of the overall songwriting and the musicianship. It does surprise me that \u201cInto The Fire\u201d didn\u2019t make a dent on the Billboard<\/i> singles chart (though it did reach number 21 on the Mainstream Rock charts).<\/i><\/p>\n
The big hit on Tooth And Nail<\/i>\u2014more correctly, Dokken\u2019s first actual hit\u2014was \u201cAlone Again,\u201d which reached number 64 on the Billboard<\/i> Hot 100. A song that guitarist George Lynch initially didn\u2019t want included on the disc, I have to admit I see his point, as it\u2019s a harder-edged ballad that doesn\u2019t quite match up with the overall sound of the album as a whole. One can argue that this is an example of Dokken trying to expand their horizons, and I guess I can see that point\u2026 and I can understand why a ballad would hit the charts. While I can appreciate the track a little more as an adult, it\u2019s still not one of my favorite songs on the disc.<\/i><\/p>\n
Although there is still a bit of filler on this disc, such as \u201cBullets To Spare\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Close Your Eyes,\u201d there is enough on Tooth And Nail<\/i> to suggest that Dokken was definitely on the right track. Their brightest days were still ahead of them in terms of mainstream success, but Tooth And Nail<\/i> is a marked improvement over their previous effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6328],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46442","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dokken","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46442","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=46442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46442"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46442"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}