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Sep 20, 2016 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

After collaborating to produce one of the top five best-selling albums of all time, a schism grew between singer Meat Loaf and songwriter Jim Steinman. It took them 16 years to make amends and follow Bat Out of Hell with its potent sequel, Bat Out of Hell II; however, their peace treaty was short-lived. After another 23 years of feuding and bitterness, the two have made up once again to produce another long-awaited record combining their idiosyncratic talents. For Meat Loaf fans, this is the LP many have spent much of their lifetime waiting for.

There are several glaring negatives to knock out of the way: Meat’s voice is pretty fried after decades of belting out “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” on tour, and Steinman’s choices of metaphor are sometimes questionable. (The lyrical phrase “erection of the heart”—from “Speaking In Tongues”—still elicits giggles after many listenings, and we’re unsure whether that’s intentional or not.) These veterans wisely pivot and adapt: many of Meat’s vocals are sung-spoken in a raspy growl, appropriate for the passages when Steinman’s subject matter acknowledges the shortcomings that arise from growing old and tired. (“My voice just isn’t what it was,” sings Meat in Waits-ian album opener “Who Needs the Young?”) Whenever prototypical Steinman-ian bombast proves too much for Meat to handle, his female co-vocalists step in to hit high notes and do other heavy lifting: it’s a patchy fix, but it works more often than it doesn’t.

It’s Steinman’s full involvement which really makes Braver Than We Are something special. His writing style has always occupied a unique halfway point between Bruce Springsteen and Andrew Lloyd Weber; this is the character who penned all of Meat’s biggest hits, from “Bat Out Of Hell” to “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” and such theatrical pop ballads as Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” “Making Love Out of Nothing At All” for Air Supply, and “Holding Out For a Hero” from Footloose. The songs strike the expected balance between rock and roll and showtunes, but it’s the epic ballads that’ll bring that ol’ Bat rush back—none more so than the sprawling “Going All the Way (A Song in 6 Movements),” which stretches nearly 12 minutes and features duets with Meat’s old singing partners, Ellen Foley and Karla DeVito. This song alone is enough to make any Meat Loaf fan’s heart soar, but other standouts—such as “Souvenirs” and a cover of the Steinman-writ Bonnie Tyler track, “Loving You Is a Dirty Job (But Somebody’s Gotta Do It)”—automatically catapult this into the upper echelon of Meat Loaf’s discography.

Braver Than We Are isn’t Bat Out of Hell (but what else is?) and it isn’t even Bat Out of Hell II, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the Steinman-unapproved Bat Out of Hell III. These are the types of songs Meat Loaf is meant to be singing, written by the only man able to fully harness his unique talents for the greater good. If this really is Meat’s final record-as he’s hinted at-then it’s a very respectable coda to go out on. (www.meatloaf.net)

Author rating: 6.5/10