Track Listing

1. Monster Is Loose
2. Blind As A Bat
3. It's All Coming Back To Me Now
4. Bad For Good
5. Cry Over Me
6. In The Land Of The Pigs (The Butcher Is King)
7. Monstero
8. Alive
9. If God Could Talk
10. If It Ain't Broke Fix It
11. What About Love
12. Seize The Night
13. Future Ain't What It Used To Be
14. Cry To Heaven

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6261 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-23
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Single
• Running time: 78 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The long-awaited third record in the Bat Out of Hell trilogy, The Monster Is Loose, wears bombast, pretension and pyrotechnics proudly on its album sleeve and across the bulging disc's 15 tracks. More a pop orchestral mishmash than a well-defined rock opus, Bat III is dark, seemingly hopeless at times, and über dramatic. Oddly enough, that's also its saving grace. Meat Loaf and company create a great escape into the realm of grand theatricality, with a bunch of radio-friendly rock tunes that sound 20 years old and several lyrically memorable AOR ballads to sustain it all the way to Broadway. With collaborator (and occasional defendant in Meat Loaf lawsuits) Jim Steinman, plus producers Desmond Child and Todd Rundgren, the Meat man consistently has the big sound booming and his despair and his rage on to the point that listeners may feel his pain a little too often. Bat III ain't for sissies. Balanced by the powerful female voices of Marion Raven, Patti Russo, and Jennifer Hudson; along with guest musicians and songwriting help from Steve Vai, Marilyn Manson's John 5, Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx, Queen's Brian May, and others; Meat Loaf's Monster has roared the unlikely rock star back to life. --Martin Keller

CD Description
The third instalment of the 'Bat Out Of Hell' series comes 13 years after volume 2 and almost 30 years after the original 'Bat Out Of Hell'; the third best-selling record of all time. An album full of dark, dramatic and epic rock masterpieces, 'Bat Out Of Hell Vol.3' features guest appearances fromthe legends such as Steve Vai, Todd Rundgren and Brian May and was produced by Desmond Child.

Customer Reviews

A good Meatloaf album but not as good as the previous 2 Bats
I have been a huge fan of Meatloaf ever since "Bat out of Hell 2" came out. I have been eagerly awaiting "Bat out of Hell 3" ever since "Welcome to the Neighbourhood" came out and I realized that not all Meatloaf albums are equal. So is this new album richer than diamonds or just a little cheaper than spit?

Well the answer is neither. On my first listening I was not impressed but to be honest I was almost expecting Bat out of Hell 2.1. I waited a day or two and then went back and listened to BooH3 with an open mind and enjoyed it much more the second time round. Several of the songs had grown on my a lot once I started listening to them and not my own expectations. There are several songs on there that are right up there with Meatloaf's classic hits.

Sadly there are also a few tracks that really disappoint. On Bat 1 and 2, pretty much every track was a hit. On 3, there are some great hits but there are also some sad misses. I won't bother listing exactly which tracks I like and dislike as others have pretty much covered my feelings here. The one track I felt really sad about was "Bad for Good". This song is one of Jim Steinman's best and ever since I heard it, I had hoped that Meatloaf would cover it one day. I guess I should have made do with my imagination. Meatloaf puts his customary gusto into most of the tracks on the album but somehow he falls flat on "Bad for Good". I really liked his duet interpretaion of "All coming back to me now" so I was suprised to hear it followed immeadiately by such a bland version of another of Steinman's greats.

I have given this album 4 stars as feel it is still a good album overall. It is better than "Welcome to the Neighbourhood" but it is really not up there with the first 2 Bat albums or "Dead Ringer".

Best since the original Bat Out Of Hell
Just spent 24 hrs on a flight from Australia listening endlessly to this latest offering from Meat Loaf. It is, in my opinion, the best that he's done since the original,never to be beaten, Bat Out Of Hell. Every track is a masterpiece and the influence of Steinman is everywhere, thank goodness. It's thoroughly addictive and will certainly be one of my top ten albums of all time. But then I'm a bit biased.

Slightly misjudged
It's been mentioned that Meat Loaf has a reputation as a balladeer. It's well-earned - he's a consummate vocalist, and the range and passion he can bring to a song needs a ballad to showcase it effectively. Even "Bat Out of Hell", one of the iconic rock anthems in the decade of iconic rock anthems is, at heart, a ballad, and the singer's strongest albums - the first two Bat albums, Dead Ringer, and Couldn't Have Said It Better - capitalise on his strengths as a balladeer.

None of which has stopped Meat Loaf putting out hard rock albums - he more or less got away with it the first time, on "Bad Attitude". He didn't get away with it in "Blind Before I Stop". He didn't get away with it on "Welcome to the Neighbourhood", a hard rock album whose only standouts were the few ballads. He doesn't really get away with it on "The Monster is Loose". For one of modern rock's greatest singers of tender love songs, lines like "Your heart is kind, mine's painted black" and "I know that I'll be bad for good" simply don't convince, any more than such past attempts at portraying himself as a 'bad boy of rock' as "Original Sin" and "Everything Louder than Everything Else". Fortunately, nothing here plumbs the depths of "Do It" or "Masculine", but nor do the hard rock offerings, save the best of them, "Alive", match up to "Bad Attitude" or "Jump the Gun".

There are still good songs here. Some are by Steinman, but Meat Loaf's reliance on this writer has been somewhat overstated here. Steinman's been behind the best Loaf output to be sure, but he's never given the singer anything that's lyrically or musically any stronger than, for instance, "Sailor to a Siren" or "Did I Say That". To some extent this album exemplifies that; "Blind as a Bat" is a non-Steinman song that uses Steinman trademark rock operatics and clever twists on a cliche. It's among the album's best; had it been performed as the soft ballad its lyrics demand rather than the harder rock ballad we're given it could have been one of Meat Loaf's best.

By contrast, Steinman's own "Bad for Good" is a little lacking. My impression on first hearing the song was that the title aptly summed up its quality, but I've listened to it again having read the reviews here. I still don't rank it among the album's star tracks, and without the typical operatic score this seven and a half minute song feels more like a four minute song stretched to fill the time than a classic Steinman/Loaf epic, but my opinion of it has improved. Aside from the bland "The Monster is Loose" and the very disappointing "If It Ain't Broke, Break It" (which the title alone had made me want to like), the album's main weak points are actually ballads - both "Cry Over Me" and especially "What About Love" are wholly forgettable. Nevertheless, Meat Loaf proves yet again that while he can do hard rock as capably as many, only his softer ballads really scream "Meat Loaf" - "Future Ain't What It Used To Be" is good, if not lyrically as clever as the title suggests it ought to be, but the standouts are "If God Could Talk" and "It's All Coming Back To Me Now". As a special treat we also get some pure, well, opera - the Wagnerian "Monstero", one of those instrumentals that somehow find their way onto Meat Loaf albums despite having no Meat Loaf involvement, and the well-judged opening to "Seize the Night" (though the "Back Into Hell"/"Good Girls Go To Heaven" insert is incongruous).

If this will be Meat Loaf's swan song, it's capable, but not the epic I'd have liked it to be.