I have often said that I’m not really a Meat Loaf fan; I’m a Jim Steinman fan. As such, it’s unsurprising that I really don’t acknowledge the album titled Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose as a Bat out of Hell album. I feel like the Bat out of Hell albums are Meat Loaf and Steinman together, like a duo. This is a Meat Loaf solo album. Yes, half of the songs are covers of Steinman’s songs, but the fact that Steinman was not involved in any way and that half of the songs are not Steinman songs are enough for me to say that this album has more in common with Welcome to the Neighborhood than the proper Bat out of Hell entries.

Part of What’s frustrating about Meat Loaf going with that title is that, without it, this would be one of his stronger albums. Is it nearly as good as Bat out of Hell or Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell? No. But the only other album he ever released nearly this good is Welcome to the Neighborhood, and this album’s non-Steinman entries are far more consistent than that album.

Another frustrating aspect is that Meat Loaf released two albums after Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell that were not named Bat out of Hell III. If I were in Meat Loaf’s shoes, I would undoubtedly have followed up Bat out of Hell II by naming every album for the rest of my career Bat out of Hell III, Bat out of Hell IV, etc. But Meat Loaf didn’t do that. And, as a fan, that makes me feel like I’m justified in my view about what makes a Bat out of Hell album, and that this isn’t it. Meat Loaf essentially disowned this album when he and Steinman reconciled, but it still stands as something of a monument of betrayal.

Outside of the Steinman songs, the album opens by putting its worst foot forward with the awful “The Monster Is Loose,” which sounds like Meat Loaf attempting metal without having heard any of it. There is some good guitar playing, but not enough of it to make up for how bad of a song it is. Then, “Blind as a Bat” comes along as something of a shocking revelation. Producer Desmond Child, who had a long, successful career after his brief collaboration with Steinman on Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire, had long specialized in a sort of hyper-pop-oriented stadium rock probably best exemplified by his time with Bon Jovi. “Blind as a Bat” tries a bigger, more bombastic, almost operatic version of that general sound–it’s actually rather less rock but bigger and louder, built on a solid pop hook chorus but seemingly not concerned with proving itself to rock hard enough for a Bat out of Hell album. It’s a legitimately excellent song, and it provides a template that a few songs on this album follow to success.

And then, Meat Loaf makes his first foray into “Bat out of Hell” without Steinman. He finally gets his own stab at “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” a song he had wanted to record forever and claimed (against Steinman’s own account) Steinman had written for him, a decade after Celine Dion and nearly two decades after Elaine Caswell and Pandora’s Box.

Where the Celine Dion version softened the Pandora’s Box recording seemingly to make it more palatable to a pop audience, Meat Loaf’s version is instead bigger and louder. There are booming guitars, cavernous drums, and there is a 53-member orchestra credited for the entire album, even though their contributions are not as noticeable as one would expect for that many musicians. The big guitar solo is excised again, the introduction is shortened, and the entire song is just a bit faster.

However, the biggest difference is that Meat Loaf performs the song as a duet with a fairly unknown Marion Raven. It’s a great choice, because she not only has a really good voice that fits the song wonderfully but is able to hit all of the high notes that may be out of Meat Loaf’s range at age 59. The back-and-forth between the two also fits with the lyrics well, and I’m betting that Steinman and Meat Loaf had at least talked about that sometime before, since we will see the same thing happen in the musical later on.

Vocally, Meat Loaf sounds good throughout the song. There are points on this album that he gets a bit stretched or just sounds weak, but this song just isn’t one of them. He wisely avoids the highest parts of the song by handing them off to the more-than-capable Raven, which also serves to make the contrast between the two voices stand out in a pleasing way.

My only real complaint about this song is an odd one for me, of all people: the guitars. First, they just sort of dominate all of the other instruments too much. There is a lot going on with strings, horns, pianos, and others in the background but they’re a bit buried, more so by the guitars than anything. It does give the recording a rather different character than either the Pandora’s Box or the Celine Dion version, but if we’re going to have an orchestra adding things, I would rather hear their contributions a bit more than we do. Further, they make the sound of almost the entire song much bigger and louder, which reduces the dynamic range that it can cover. It just doesn’t quite have the dramatic build-up or comedown that the Pandora’s Box version delivers, and I think the volume of the guitar work is the main reason.

It’s an excellent version of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” that deserves to stand alongside the original. For me, it doesn’t replace the Pandora’s Box version, and really if push came to shove I would choose the earlier version over this one, but it’s pretty close. It’s a pleasant surprise for the Bat-without-Steinman idea.