Sometimes it feels like Meat Loaf tried to make up for missing the ’80s in the US not just by covering every ’80s Steinman song but then by making them sound more ’80s than Steinman’s original production.

You can’t sound much more like the ’80s than what Meat Loaf did here. The synthesized strings and organs from the original recording are replaced by a mix of overdriven guitars and straightforward synthesizers. The “ooh” and “ahh” backing vocals are partly also replaced by synthesizers. There are seemingly no real drums.

All that said, it’s a pretty straightforward cover. There’s no rearranging of structural elements. There are no lyrical changes. Nearly every note is the same other than some changing of which instruments play them.

Meat Loaf’s vocal isn’t terrible in this one, though I don’t think he has the feeling of barely-contained rage that Andrew Eldritch has in the original. The roughness to his voice does generally work better here than in much of the album, but it’s definitely still present. I’m not entirely certain but I think the bits of lead female vocals are Alicia Avery, and she sounds good in her tiny part.

In the end, this feels to me like a rather pointless cover. It’s not different enough to be worth hearing for that difference, and all of the differences that do exist are downgrades. It’s still good, because “More” is simply too good of a song to ruin without some real effort, but I would probably never seek to listen to this version.

Ranking the Versions

1. The Sisters of Mercy (original)
2. Shaman
   • It really should be better. Andre Matos can really sing. But it just kind of sounds like a watered-down version of the original.
3. Erika Christensen and Mike Vogel (from Wuthering Heights)
   • It’s actually better than I remembered.
4. Meat Loaf
5. Atrocity
   • This seems like a good fit, but it just doesn’t work. Sounds like cheap production, perhaps even more so than the Shaman version.
6. Gregorian
   • I hate Gregorian chant. I discovered that from hearing this cover.