This year, Oct 31st meant something a little different to me. <\/p>\n
When words first reached my ears of Meat Loaf entering into the studio to record Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose<\/em>, excitement immediately welled up inside me. <\/p>\n Of course, one couldn\u2019t feel but a little apprehensive about the announcement. A Bat <\/em>album is something unique in the annals of rock, since few other records sound like the previous two. Also, around May there was a great deal of nail biting as Jim Steinman, the other half of the Bat<\/em> partnership, sued Meat Loaf over TMIL<\/em>. The lawsuit was settled out of court, but it was still a bit worrisome to think about a third album without the person who helped guide the first two.<\/p>\n Thank God that my worries have been somewhat assuaged. Monster<\/em> is not even close to the original, but it\u2019s better than Back Into Hell<\/em>, the second in the sequence. <\/p>\n Much has been made of the Jim Steinman material on TMIL<\/em>. None of the songs were written specifically for the album, with some (\u201cBad For Good\u201d) having been crafted way back in the early ’80s. Big deal. These songs fit perfectly within the context and complement the non-Steinman songs as well.<\/p>\n Credit must be given to wonder-producer Desmond Child for pulling off this gargantuan task. TMIL<\/em> is big, loud, heavy, everything a Bat album should be. In fact, TMIL<\/em> \u201crocks\u201d harder than its two predecessors due in part to Child\u2019s production. The bone-crunching, almost nu-metal guitars on songs like the title track and \u201cIn The Land Of The Pigs, The Butcher Is King\u201d are something entirely new for this trilogy.<\/p>\n So while this makes certain aspects of TMIL<\/em> more accessible to today\u2019s audience, it does keep it from reaching a certain level of exclusivity. Tracks like \u201cCry Over Me\u201d or \u201c If God Could Talk,\u201d while of a relative high quality, don\u2019t sound necessarily like a Meat Loaf song. TMIL<\/em> is what Evanescence and bands of their ilk attempt to sound like.<\/p>\n The key difference is, of course, Mr. Loaf. For whatever shortcomings TMIL<\/em> may have, none of them occur on the singer’s part. His presence and raw emotion alone make the tunes work, which is good because they would have failed if nearly any other artist had attempted to sing them. And when everything comes together, the disc is just as good as its predecessors, especially on \u201cBad For Good\u201d or \u201cAlive,\u201d which capture the grand pomposity and epic-ness we remember.<\/p>\n To my surprise, the most stunning moment on the entire disc come with \u201cIt\u2019s All Coming Back To Me Now,\u201d which was made famous by Celine Dion, though according to Meat Loaf it was written with him in mind. On TMIL<\/em>, he gets a chance to remedy that situation, presenting the song in a duet form with Marion Raven. What results is a gut-wrenchingly powerful performance from both players that is easily one of the best songs of the year.<\/p>\n Yes, TMIL<\/em> is a tad on the long side. There are definitely one or two songs that could have been cut and not missed. The point is, Bat Out of Hell III<\/em> is more than a worthy successor to one of rock\u2019s greatest series. Welcome back, Meat Loaf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5932],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40020","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-meat-loaf","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40020","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40020"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}