Fall Of The Peacemakers 1980-1985

What can be said about these 4 releases that you already don't know .......... For years I was in search for the 2 missing tracks from the Double Trouble Live 2xLP that didn't make it to the CD release due to time limitations. I have owned the original double Live LP, and always felt a little shortchanged w/the CD release (I hate when record companies do this). Never the less, they are included here. Albeit not on the live release, where they originate from, but on "The Deed Is Done" as bonus material. This may not be the worst decision, since these two tracks are very much in the vein of the newer slightly electronic sound of the band (like ZZ Top's Eliminator), which I feel is the beginning of the end for the original line-up. It would have been however a good idea to subsidize, and ad a few tracks to the live CD, since there is plenty of room left on it. The Live CD was virtually left "untouched" w/the exception of the re-mastering, which is definitely a plus, I just felt that the unused 15-20 min's could have been utilised a little better. This way the Double Trouble Live CD is the same length as the previous CD releases, w/a slightly better sound. As far as the rest of the CD's out of these 4; "Take No Prisoners" may be the best value for your hard earned $. It includes an array of bonus material! A Total of 9! 6 of which are pulled from the limited promo LP, simply titled LIVE, a show recorded at Lakeland Civic Center Arena in 1980. It was released in very limited numbers to radio stations in order to promote the band once Jimmy Farrar replaced Danny Joe Brown. I wish the entire "LIVE" LP would have been represented here, since the sound quality is very good. This CD also includes a live rendition of "Mississippi Queen", with Molly Hatchet joined by Ted Nugent. The remaining two CD's "No Guts. No Glory" & "The Deed Is Done" do not have much bonus material on them, some radio edits and "short versions" of the existing tracks. No Guts contains perhaps the band's last big hit "Fall Of The Peacemakers'". The included booklet is great, some 20+ pages that talk about some of the the recording sessions, told by the people involved at the time, like the producer Terry Manning. It also contains the obligatory pictures that you may or may have not seen before. If you by chance already own the "Original Album Classics" 2016 five CD set containing a quintet of albums by the Southern rockers. Two of them are replicated, but this set has some bonus material on those repeated CD's , most notably, the two missing Live tracks from Double Trouble. I believe both Box sets have been re-mastered. All in all, if you're a fan of the first incarnation of Molly Hatchet, this 4 CD set makes sense in addition to the "Original Album Classics" 5 CD set. As far as I'm concerned, with these two collections the chapter has closed.

I specifically got this to finally own No Guts No Glory remastered as I have all of Molly Hatchet’s albums from 78-85. The bonus was to also finally own the complete Double Trouble Live remastered (the two deleted tracks from previous CD releases are included on The Deed Is Done). I hadn’t heard Walk On The Side Of The Angels since the very last cassette tape release in the late’90s. By the way I own every previous version on CD of No Guts “ “, and no they’re not remastered like this one.

This is an excellent box set of (4) of Molly's best albums (IMHO). I really appreciated the bonus tracks in "Take No Prisoners"...being that I might be one of the few that really liked the changes Jimmy Farrar brought with his addition to the band. I found the entire box set with all of the bonus tracks to be fresh with a high quality sound like I haven't heard before...even though I have just about every version of each album. Yeah, I guess you could call me a Molly Hatchet fan...since I've been listening to their music for the last 40 years.

I mainly bought to complete my Molly Hatchet catalog. The remasters sound good and it's everything I wanted.

If you like ORIGINAL Molly Hatchet, this is a great item. Everything just sounded fresh to me, like hearing these classics for the first time all over again. Love the addition of the two "new" live songs from Double Trouble Live

So a little bit of back story first. I was really into Molly Hatchet back when these albums were first released. Beating The Odds was the first album of theirs that I bought, followed by all these as they were released, but as time moved on so did I and the albums went to the great vinyl store in the sky, or Oxfam as it’s better known. I bought Flirting With Disaster a few years ago but my memory told me that Beating The Odds and so forth weren’t worth re-visiting and stayed away. Then a few weeks ago I heard one of those live recordings that had slipped through the copyright black hole, one from the Beating The Odds tour. By heck it sounded good so I convinced myself to go out and get that album again, the re-mastered version from Rock Candy. My memory had played tricks on me, it was (is) a bloody good album, full of excellent southern rock. I spotted this set and thought time to re- visit these albums, especially when you get 4 albums for £20. Unfortunately my memory had been slightly more accurate when came to these four.First up is Take No Prisoners, the second album to feature Jimmy Farrar on vocals, I know this maybe sacrilege to most Hatchet fans but I prefer his vocals to Danny Joe Brown’s, he had a much stronger voice. But despite that this is the album that starts the decline. The songs are are not as strong as on previous albums, there is a more straight forward rock feel to them, less of a Southern Rock feel. Yes it has its strong points, most notably the first track Bloody Reunion and the last track Dead Giveaway, but the track Power Play sounds as if it could have come off Boston’s first album. To be fair the extras on this release are the most interesting, yes there’s a couple of radio edits (pointless) but there’s a cover of Mountain’s Mississippi Queen with Ted Nugent and 5 tracks from the gig I mentioned earlier that prove what a really good live band Hatchet could be.Next up is No Guts...No Glory and Danny Joe Brown’s return to the band, it is also, nearly, a return to form., nearly but not quite. It starts really promisingly with What Does It Matter, a return to the more Southern Rock feel of the first three albums, the next two songs continue in this vein and then we get to one of Hatchet’s longer classics Fall of the Peacemakers. All Southern Rock bands had to try for their own Freebird, a lengthy song that that starts out slow and gentle and then builds to the inevitable guitar freak out. This is the last classic Hatchet recorded, but what a classic it is a real guitar blow out at the end. Sadly after this the album goes downhill slightly. The old side two, as us old enough to remember call it, goes back to the more standard rock such as we heard on Take No Prisoners, including the attempt at a hit single Kinda Like Love, a distinctly average song. But the album does finish strongly with Under The Gun, On The Prowl, and the slightly gentler instrumental Both Sides, a return to a good Southern Rock style. Surely this was the way to continue.Unfortunately by the time they got to the following year’s The Deed Is Done it’s clear the record company were not happy with the falling sales and told them to bring in outside song writers and, in the light of ZZ Top’s huge success with Eliminator, synthesisers. It didn’t work. I’ll hold my hand up here and confess that when the album came out in 1984 I really liked it, it was hardly off the turntable. But hearing it now over 30 years later it sounds really bad, very average AOR, typically ‘80’s with barely a Southern Rock sound to be heard. Sadly they had moved too far from the gritty sound of the first three albums. What to do now, why as all good rock bands do when they feel the heat, release a live album.Now a few reviewers on here have said that Double Trouble Live is one of the great live albums, each to their own, but I have to disagree. As I said earlier the live extras on Take No Prisoners show what a strong live act Hatchet were, but the problem with this album comes in the middle. Now like all rock fans I love Freebird, but why did they feel the need to include it here, yes it’s an efficient copy but there are many good songs from Beatin The Odds, and No Guts that could and should have been on here instead, as for the two previously unreleased tracks, they were more of the style on Deed, bland ‘80’s AOR, and, for me, should never have seen the light of day. This is unfortunate as the other tracks on here are excellent, although I can’t help but feel the guitar blowout on Peacemakers has been edited down, this shouldn’t have been allowed, these types of songs have to allowed to run their course. For any album, but especially a live one, to be considered a classic it has to be all killer and no filler, this one has three tracks of filler. A quick explanation, the two unreleased tracks at were originally on side three of the album are included as extras on the Deed album, but they belong here. I edited them into my ITunes download of the album but I think I’ll remove them.A quick word about the packaging. It comes in a good sturdy clam shell case and each album is in a copy of the original album sleeve, something I like. There is a booklet that includes production notes and a good essay by Xavier Russell, who for those that were about at the time wrote for Kerrang magazine and was a big big fan of the band. The notes indicate there has been remastering but I have to say these albums do not sound as good as the Rock Candy release of Beatin The Odds. I’m sorry I can’t be as fulsome in my praise as what I had hoped, but I would say if you’re looking to get these four albums this is way to get them, at time of writing they are £20 and at that price still good value, even if in my view they don’t quite measure up to what I hoped for.

Interesting box set....The good,well thats easy, the 'No Guts No Glory' album and the superb 'Double trouble Live',along side finally getting the 2 tracks missed of the 'Double Trouble CD release and the full 6 track live promo from 1980.The bad ,well,that would be 1981's 'Take No Prisoners ' release,its not great and the sleeve is pitiful and the UGLY ,that would be reserved for 'The Deed Is Done' a quite pitiful release ,possibly the worst studio album under the Hatchet name.So a mixed bag really,my reasons for buying are noted above under the 'GOOD' that plus they have been remastered and sound better than my previous purchases.The booklet is decent although i find Xavier Russells gushing praise a bit hard to swallow,some of us are old enough to remember his disparaging comments regards the 'Beaten The Odds' album That plus his ridiculous rehashing of the 'ugly Jimmy Farrar' quotes,did we really need that again?So a release you may want to think carefully about before buying.

I have waited for nearly 30 years to get "Walk on the side of the angels" and "Walk with you" on CD. They were on the cassette (remember them?) of "Double Trouble Live" one of my favourite live albums), but never made it to the CD. Now they are added to "The deed is done" CD as bonus tracks. Well worth the purchase of the box set. Brilliant band, excellent albums. Enjoy southern rock at it's very best.

Exactly what I had hoped for.My favourite live album has been shortened to fit on a single cd, but both of the tracks are bonus tracks on the Deed is Done. A recommended purchase.

Southern rock at its finest they may not be Skynyrd but they're a damn fine band in their own right. Dixie and the South will never fall when bands like Molly Hatchet are still plying there trade and flying the Stars n Bars.