I’ve been a long-time fan of Meat Loaf’s music, and though I didn’t rush out to pick up a copy of “Bat Out of Hell III” the second it came out, I looked forward to its release with much anticipation. The second “Bat” amounted to a musical revelation for me, as to be honest there was very, very little in the form of rock that I listened to at that time in my life, but somehow that album got around my defenses and opened my mind to a whole world of musical possibilities. I am not exaggerating here - I consider the day I listened to Bat II one of the most significant days in my life, considering the long-reaching implications it had. (In MANY ways.)
Personal events in recent years have made Meat’s music very difficult emotionally to listen to, to the point where I even sold my copies of the previous Bats - but I recognize that the problem is my own, and holding it against the music is more than a little unfair. So, with the arrival of “Bat III,” my personal Meat embargo has been lifted, and I’m trying to evaluate the new album on its own merits, while also looking at it as part of a bigger whole. The end result? Read on…
-The first cut is the title track, “The Monster is Loose,” which was previously available for download on Meat’s MySpace page, written by the new producer for this “Bat,” Desmond Child. The more I listen to this one, the more I like it. It’s got the bombastic, over-the-top Meat Loaf feel, while definitely feeling more contemporary in the musical tone and pace. A really good track.
-Next is a slightly slower love ballad called “Blind as a Bat,” it once again has the depth of lyrics and musical audacity that we’ve become accustomed to from the “Bat” series, even without being written by Meat’s longtime collaborator Jim Steinman. There are even some nifty lyrical references that could almost be a dig at him: “I’m not afraid that I’m bad for good,” referencing a song that Steinman wrote and will actually appear later on in the album. This song also starts to answer one of my biggest fears about a new “Bat” project - Meat’s voice has shown some weakness in recent years, and I wasn’t sure if his pipes could handle the kind of singing a “Bat” usually requires. “Monster” doesn’t require that level of belting, but this song does, and by god, it’s Meat Loaf in full voice, all right.
-Then is our first contribution from Mr. Steinman himself, and following his usual pattern, he offers more in the form of re-uses of older (and less heard) material than he actually writes new stuff. In most cases, I’ve been waiting to hear Meat take a shot at most of this material, anyway, so it’s all good. The new songs Steinman contributes, we’ll deal with later. Anyway, this is a remake of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” which of course was recorded as a single by Celene Dion a while back. This time it’s performed as a duet with newcomer Marion Raven, and boy does the woman have pipes. She may end up being a star if she plays her cards right. I was pretty harsh to this track when it was first released, but the more I’ve heard it I’ve realized I was WAY too harsh. This is actually a very lovely rearrangement of the tune, and it certainly has way more soul behind it than the Dion version. Yes, once again, I admit, I was wrong!
-Up next is another Steinman re-recording, of a tune that I THINK Meat has done before - “Bad for Good,” a tune that was actually the title track of Steinman’s ill-fated solo album. This one’s much more of a straight up remake of the original tune than most of the other Steinman redos on the album, but it’s a good song so that’s okay.
-Now we get our most standard-pop song on the album, a short love song entitled “Cry Over Me.” It’s not bad by any means, but nothing exceptional, and for a “Bat Out of Hell” song it’s way too simple and, well, NORMAL.
-Then comes the first of the two new Steinman songs on the album - “In the Land of the Pigs, The Butcher is King.” Ahem. Let’s deal with the title first - there’s nothing about it that could not be fixed by simply calling it, “Land of the Pigs.” Or “The Butcher is King.” Either or. We don’t need a whole line of lyrics in the title, thanks. It starts promising, with an ominous build of music leading up the way, but once the song proper begins, it begins to go downhill. I have no idea what happened here - this song is so NOT Jim Steinman. Hard driving base beat and relatively formless lyrics, with no creative musical flourishes or bombastic vocal moments anywhere? What the heck is this? It’s not horrible or anything, but it certainly is nowhere near his best work.
-Up next is the now-traditional short orchestral and/or chorus track, entitled “Monstro,” which starts nice and ominous and then builds into a up tempo rock beat. (The transition isn’t nearly as jarring as you’d think.) This leads into the song “Alive,” which I actually like a LOT. It’s fast paced and upbeat, with enough lyrical complexity and emotion to work. It’s short (for Meat, anyway), but it really is a good song, IMO, and you can tell singing it is almost a cathartic experience for Meat, as he’s not only playing his character, but he’s taking a stand as a musician dead-set on a comeback.
-Then we slow things down with “If God Could Talk,” a sweet song that isn’t a companion piece to “What If God Was One of Us,” I swear. This one’s really more of a love ballad, with enough of a hard backbeat to avoid being annoying. And again, it’s clear Meat is pouring his soul into every track.
-More new Steinman is next, as we get “If It Ain’t Broke, Break It,” this album’s attempt at “Life is a Lemon,” I guess. It’s certainly a better track than “Pigs,” with a much catchier hook and more entertaining lyrics, but it’s still nowhere near being a Steinman song. It’s strange but the most Steinman-sounding of the new material have been the songs that weren’t written by Steinman.
-”What About Love,” the album’s next track, seems much more like a nice addition to “Welcome to the Neighborhood” than a “Bat Out of Hell” album, being much more, well, sappy than you normally get from an album in this series. I like the track, as it’s actually pretty catchy as these things go, and as it goes along it actually starts to rev it up and get some mustard behind it, I just don’t know if it belongs on here.
-And now we get the epic, as Steinman brings in the 10-minute track “Seize the Night” from his short-lived Broadway musical “Dance of the Vampires,” complete with 2-minute orchestral intro. It’s a great arrangement and performance of the material, really, but it only serves to showcase some of the flaws in the original piece, like its repetitive lyrics (the whole of the song’s 10-minutes fits onto less than one page of the booklet, as opposed to the two pages the much shorter “What About Love” takes up just one track earlier) and musical self-plagiarism (the basic guitar chord is completely ripped off from Steinman’s own “Good Girls Go to Heaven,” and a musical breakdown sounds eerily similar to “The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be,” which is the VERY NEXT SONG ON THIS ALBUM). I’m glad Meat took a stab at it, really, but the song itself really could have used some reworking.
-The climax of the album comes with Meat FINALLY recording what is my all-time favorite Steinman song that he hasn’t recorded yet - “The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be.” The lyrics and the music are just plain beautiful, and Meat’s performance is just what I was hoping for from him, though the re-arrangement into almost a revival hymn takes quite a bit away from it, for me. It’s still a really good song, just not quite everything I was hoping for.
-The “Epilogue” is a short Steinman song called “Cry to Heaven,” a sweet lullabye that really works quite well as a closer, not only for the album but, perhaps, the whole of the “Bat” saga.
So on the whole, is it everything I wanted? No, but how could it be? When an album means as much to a person as “Bat II” did to me, how can anything that tries to follow it up do anything but pale in comparison?
But that aside, how is it as an album? I think that it’s a very good piece, with several excellent tracks and the wonderful surprise that Meat is back in full voice and sounding great. The flaws in this album have almost nothing to do with his work, they lie in odd arrangement choices by the producers on some of the tracks and the truly disappointing factor of Steinman’s contributions, particularly the original numbers. I can’t believe I’m going to write this sentence, but the weakest part of “Bat III” is Jim Steinman.
As for the rest of the album, there’s enough good stuff for me to recommend it on its own merits, or if you’re not up to owning the whole thing, definitely check out “Monster,” “It’s All Coming Back to Me” and “Alive.” I think the best way I can sum it up is, while it’s a very good album, it’s not a great “Bat Out of Hell.”
