Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose

Bat Out of Hell III is Meat Loaf’s long-awaited 3rd installment of the most successful rock music series of all time, with the two previous albums selling a total of 45 million copies around the world. Bat Out of Hell, released in 1977 and produced by Todd Rundgren, is the third best-selling album of all time, with 30 million copies sold worldwide, featuring such Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman standards as "Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad," "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" and the show-stopping "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights."

The Steinman-produced Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which came out in 1993, has sold more than 15 million, with the classic "I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)," earning Meat Loaf a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance.

Bat Out of Hell III continues the epic story in grand fashion, with contributions once again from Steinman and Rundgren, and produced by hitmaker Desmond Child. Bat Out of Hell III marks the triumphant return of the Bat Out of Hell saga, completing this remarkable trilogy!

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 14 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, 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 like a bat out of Baghdad. --Martin Keller

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