Meat Loaf:Bat Out Of Hell III:The Monster Is Loose

Got this album yesterday. Absolutely fantastic. Here are some brief notes on it:

1.The Monster Is Loose. Fantastic song. Atmospheric, angry, loud...a really beligerent rock song, with some creative writing.
2.Blind As A Bat. There is approximately one half of a good song here. Exactly everything forward from the start of the guitar solo. Great chorus, but the writing to start sucks. You'd think this was written by 3 Doors Down or Bryan Adams it's so stilted.
3.It's All Coming Back To Me Now. Good song. I remember hearing Celine do it and thinking "That's got Meat Loaf written all over it."
4.Bad For Good. Not a bad song...it should be better though. It's kind of boring. The repeated bridge is where it starts to get better.
5.Cry Over Me. Yet another fantastic song. The meanest love song since Keith Urban recorded "You'll Think Of Me." I wanted to hate it - Diane Warren should never be allowed near a BOH record - but it works.
6.In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King. Great running music. Fun, mean, and pretty meaningless, it's good to listen to when you are either angry or need to get your blood pumping. Steve Vai on guitar is great. Love the chorus. Starts off sounding like TSO.
7.Monstro. Starts off sounding like TSO. Ultimately a throw-away song. Nothing interesting here.
8.Alive. Another throw-away. Tried too hard to make it a fist-pumping anthem, wound up with a few too many syllables in each line, and a rather flat chorus.
9.If God Could Talk. Most excellent song. Can't say anything else about it really. Enjoyable to listen to.
10.If It Ain't Broke, Break It. Like Alive, it's kind of flat sounding, and winds up as a throw-away song. Just filler, though it does have some good points.
11.What About Love. The duet works better than any of the Bon Jovi duets ever did, but it should've been just Meat on vocals. At least as good as If God Could Talk.
12.Seize The Night. Massive, ponderous, and ultimately too big for its own good. It tries too hard to be a massive rock epic, in traditional Meat Loaf style. It just ends up being boring and repetitive.
13.The Future Ain't What It Used To Be. This is how a long song should be done. Lots of emotion, lots of ear-candy. I won't call it fun, but it is enjoyable.
14.Cry To Heaven. Either this is Meat's goodbye wave, or it's a setup for the next BOH album. I hope it's the later option. Ultimately it's just wasted space.

To recap: Good album. Great to listen to. I was going to say that Desmond Child (who's penned pop for Clay Aiken, Bo Bice, Bon Jovi, and Aerosmith) shouldn't be allowed near a BOH album ever. To look at that review though, Steinman penned just as many filler songs (though they were more intelligently written than Child's). I kind of wish they had've shrunken this down to 7-10 songs, but there's not really a BAD song here that I HATE. It's ten dollars well spent.