Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose

Mr. Loaf has released eight studio albums, not counting this one, which will surprise those who thought there had been only two - Bat Out Of Hell I and II. So completely has the Bat series dominated the big man's career, it's hard to name anything else he has done - a cameo as a bus driver in the Spice Girls film comes to mind. - those other six albums (including the most recent, Couldn't Have Said it Better in 2002, and Welcome to the Neighbourhood in 1995) are stubbornly unmemorable. It's not the fault of the albums themselves, but of the looming Bat shadow, which effectively cancels out everything else.Meat claims that III will be the last of the Bats, so, fittingly, it's the most ludicrous of all. Following a copyright lawsuit, this is the first album on which writer/producer Jim Steinman has played no active part (he has, however, contributed seven songs, including It's All Coming Back to Me Now, a 1996 hit for Celine Dion). Meat fills the void in two ways: by recruiting the most bombastic sidemen available (including Queens's Brian May,former Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5 and Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx). For what it's worth, there's a loose narrative thread (the "monster" - war, famine, pestilence - is on the loose, so you might as well stay at home with a Meat Loaf album), the record's main purpose, which is to indulge Meat's love of the gothic. He pours on the melodrama from the start, and if "melodramatic" could just as well describe the first two Bat albums.Meat is 58, and as he blasts out the bell-ringing, choir-filled arias entitled Blind as a Bat and Bad for Good (the latter featuring a hell-for-leather Brian May).Still everything you could hope for in a Bat Album.

This is what makes this man so special, he doesn't just add his voice to the words and music, he throws hisself into it full force. The depth of emotional content is drawn from inside of him and he wraps it around him and draws from that energy as it pours out.It makes you wonder how he transitions back into every day life after walking out of the studio after having done this for hours. The emotional strain must be tremendous. But in the end it's worth it when he gets it where he wants it...It's not just the power you can feel reverberating from the music and his voice both at the same time, but the feeling poured into the words like he reached inside his very soul and pulled it out somehow to share with us all.There's a mix on this album that will blow you away. From the hard rocking songs to the gut wrenching ballads, Meat Loaf exemplifies Rock opera and puts it across in a way I have never seen anyone else do before. Now that I have played these songs back to back to back to back I need to get back into the real world and get my work done... LOL... But you can be sure I won't be able to shake him off so easy. He stays with you after you turn the cd player of whatever type off....Buy it, feel it, love it.... He's a one of a kind to be sure.

A vary nice soft rock ballad album by the artist known as "Meat Loaf". This cover could make some people think that this album is metal or something, but it' is not. Meat Loaf is a vary gentle and soft older kind of rock in roll star. However the vary first track on this CD is kind of like hard rock, but the rest is just soft and easy listening for the most part of this long album. Some people may consider this somewhat of a Broadway musical and it is also true. But only slightly like Broadway though. I highly recommend this album to anyone who wants to hear a great singing voice . Now, I may sound like a comedian to some of you given the album covers appearance, but this is not a heavy metal or even a hard rock album trust me if your looking for something like hard or heavy don't buy this album. This really is a strange album cover for a soft rock CD I can agreethis album has 14 songs and is about 1 hour and 17 minutes long and it is all on 1 CD