Hard 20 |
Molly Hatchet"25th Anniversary Best Of-Re-recorded" Yeehaw and hot dang! Molly Hatchet have given us twenty five years of Southern fried rock and roll, and they celebrate by releasing this CD of seventeen of their classics, re-recorded with their new lineup (which features none of the original members of Molly Hatchet! Is it REALLY the same band? Open for debate but a different case). Original lineup or not, Molly Hatchet are undoubtedly Southern rock legends, and have been treating us to their supercharged, hard rocking, whiskey fueled, rough'n'tumble sound for two and a half decades, and are one of the heavier Southern rock bands, so let's down a shot of Jack for these guys! The disc kicks off with "Flirting With Disaster", Molly Hatchet's most famous song, which is still a staple on classic rock radio to this day! Always a tail-kicking tune, the guys have thrown in some honky tonk piano on this new version, that wasn't on the original. Sixteen more Molly classics are featured here, including "Bounty Hunter", "Gator Country", "Whiskey Man", "The Creeper", "Boogie No More", "Satisfied Man" (from the '84 album, "The Deed Is Done", which saw the band going in a somewhat more commercial direction, with a more polished sound, keyboards, and female backup singers), and "Beating The Odds". And I guess every hillbilly has a soft side because there are three ballads on here, "Goodbye To Love", "Fall Of The Peacemakers" (an appropriate song in times like these! Although a plea for world peace is not what one would expect from a bunch of rough and tough rednecks like the Hatchet boys! And this song was written over twenty years ago! If they thought things were bad then...!), and "Epitaph/Memories/The Great Beyond" (which I think is a new tune, written just for this album), and instrumental that starts off as a piano piece similar to the Who's "Love, Reign Over Me" or the beginning of Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath", then becomes bombastic, with a smokin' guitar solo! As I said, there are no members of the original Molly Hatchet in this lineup, but the guys they passed the torch to seem to be doing a good job. They've certainly done well reworking all these classics. New singer Phil McCormack has a voice similar to Danny Joe Brown's (original Hatchet vocalist), rough, raw, and gutsy, and the rest of the guys are good too. The guitar playing is as smokin' as it was on the originals! No disrespect meant to the original Hatchet boys, but I couldn't tell much of a difference between the way these new guys play and the playing on the original versions. So these guys do seem to be doing a good job of filling the shoes of their predecessors. Although, I'm sure many die hard Hatchet fans will say that this isn't the real thing, without a single original member, but cut the guys some slack, they're good at what they do, and they're carrying the torch for a Southern rock legend! Happy 25th, Molly Hatchet! Here's to many more years of rockin' Southern style! |