How else could this end?

Twenty three years after their last, unexpected, triumph, 1993’s Bat Out Of Hell II, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman join forces for Braver Than We Are.  A lot has changed in those 23 years.  Meat Loaf has continued to record and tour, to varying degrees of success.  Steinman has had number one songs (hello Celine Dion) and more than dipped his toes into his true love of musical theater.  There have been attempts to reconcile (Bat Out of Hell III) as well as lawsuits between the two (again Bat Out Of Hell III). Surprisingly the impetus and hindrance of Braver Than We Are is the same, the health of both Meat Loaf and Steinman.

First a little history is in order. When the original Bat Out Of Hell was released in 1977 it was years in the making. Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman had peddled their songs to every record company in the country. Finally small label Cleveland International decided to take a chance.  One piece of business needed to be finalized before the album could be released, what to call “the band”.  Finally it was decided to credit the album to singer Meat Loaf with the cover tagline ‘Songs By Jim Steinman’. The issue being that the album was a band album and not a solo one.  As Bat took off and the tour got bigger and bigger that became more obvious as the band, and backing/shared lead vocalists would cover for Meat Loaf’s inabilities to keep his pristine voice in shape. This was 1978, by the end of the year Meat Loaf completely lost his voice and it would not be until 1981 that he would find it, and then it was a shadow of it’s former self.  Eventually he would get better control over it, his 90s albums sounding close to , but not reaching the heights of Bat 1.

In contrast, Jim Steinman was only an average singer to start with, something that showed it’s face on his one and only release Bad For Good released in 1981. But his song writing was never in question. After Bat 1 he became a well sort after producer (although he did not produce the original Bat), which lasted through the early 2000’s. When he was elected into the Songwriter’s Hall Of Fame it was obvious that he was not in good health.  Using a wheelchair and having difficulties speaking, reports are that he has had a string of multiple strokes over the past ten years.

That leads us to Braver Than We Are.  Throughout the years Steinman has reused songs when he felt that the band or vocalist he was working with could do a different, if not superior version. The Meat Loaf faithful were hoping for an album of new songs, but that’s not what came out.  In true Steinman fashion, several of the songs had already been released by other artists while the others have been on the internet for years in demo form.

The album opens with ‘Who Needs the Young’ a song that has been around for a LONG time as it was the first song Jim Steinman wrote back as a nineteen year old.  It’s an odd choice for the lead song as it’s definitely not a bombastic song such as the ones that lead off Bat 1 or Bat 2 (‘Bat out of Hell’ and ‘I’d Do Anything For Love’ respectively), but this is NOT a Bat album. The song is a sort of bluesy, lounge lament of some old timers.  As soon as Meat Loaf starts to sing it’s obvious his voice has seen much better days (or decades).  As he nears 70 how could it not?  It’s been nearly forty years since he completely blew it out.  In the decades since he’s never let up and has always pushed it to the limits in concert, perhaps not always in spectacular fashion but you can’t deny that he has always entertained.

The album moves on to the pseudo-title track and showpiece.  Originally called ‘Braver Than We Are’ in Steinman’s ill-fated Broadway show “Dance Of The Vampires”, it has been re-titled ‘Going All The Way (A Song in 6 Movements)’.  Singing with Meat Loaf is his original ‘Paradise By the Dashboard Light’ co-lead Ellen Foley and his Bat Out Of Hell tour lead Karla DeVito.  The women steal the song.  In recent interviews I’ve seen with Meat Loaf, he describes how he gets in character to sing a song.  One can only imagine ‘Hunchback Of Notre Dame’ for his vocal inspiration here.  The song itself is typical of Steinman’s epics, gloriously long and overdone (meant in a good way).  The female leads more than make up for Meat Loaf’s shortcomings but the one item that can’t be overlooked is the production.

The album is produced by guitarist Paul Crook, who produced Meat Loaf’s last album Hell In A Handbasket, and previously played with Anthrax. What he was going for in this production is beyond me.  The telltale sign of a Steinman song was bombast and over the top.  This album has a resignation to it, where there are parts of songs that should be exploding but are held back.  ‘Going All the Way’ is the best example of this.  The vocals are so in front of everything else that the instruments sound muted.  The guitars, even when soloing, sound like they were in another room.  Even Steinman’s beloved piano isn’t allowed to shine as in previous releases. Even with the production shortcomings the song is fun to listen to, and the best on the album.

‘Speaking in Tongues’ follows and is a typical Steinman tongue in cheek ode to sex.  In this case, not tongue in cheek.  On his non-Steinman albums, Meat Loaf always had writers attempt to be Steinman.  None more so than Desmond Child on Bat Out Of Hell 3. What those writers always missed was the not so serious aspect that Steinman uses.  In ‘Speaking in Tongues’ Steinman writes:

We’re overflowing with desire

You’ve got the spark, I got wood

Shakespeare it is not, childish possibly.  But that’s always been Steinman’s calling card, he believes he is Peter Pan, the man-boy that never grew up and he has always shown that in his songs.

‘Loving You’s a Dirty Job’ follows next, a remake of the Bonnie Tyler track.  Stacy Michelle sings her heart out as the protagonist to Meat’s character.  In this song , more than any other on the album, Meat sounds his age.  Whether that is good or bad, who’s really to say.  The song is entertaining though.

‘Souvenirs’ follows, and it’s a highlight of the album for me.  Meat sings with emotion, and attempts to overcome the shortcomings of his voice and almost succeeds.

‘Only When I Feel’, ‘More’ (first done by The Sisters Of Mercy) and ‘Godz’ (another song from Dance of the Vampires) follow.  Then comes what should have been the final song on the album (I’m not going to discuss the ‘bonus’ tracks).  ‘Skull Of Your Country’ is easily the second best song, maybe the best?, on the album.  Meat Loaf started doing part of the song in his concerts of the late 80s, fueling speculation that it would appear on Bat 2, which it did not.  Finally recorded here it includes the familiar ‘turn around…’ section that would become famous in ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’.  At the end of the song you can almost feel him walking out the door, turning off the lights and saying goodbye. But he doesn’t.

‘Train of Love’ end the album and I don’t why.  More straight ahead rock than most Steinman songs and it’s just very pedestrian.  One expects a much more dramatic way to end what could be the final album of a group of rock legends.

When this album came out I listened to it several times and then started reading reviews.  I’ve never seen an album run the complete range of emotions from “brilliant” all the way to “utter garbage”.  Do I wish Steinman was more involved, of course, do I wish Meat Loaf sounded better, definitely. But you have to ask why was the album made?  Meat Loaf says it was to finish his career with Steinman.  An entire album of Steinman songs, sung by his biggest cheerleader is more than enough to make me want to listen, enjoy and even recommend this to any rock fans. Odds are we will never heard anything like it again.