Author: Urban Bolta
Artist: Meat Loaf
Label: Legacy Recordings
Released: 2012
Running time: 53:05
Rating: 2.5/5
After barely two years, Metal Loaf is back with a new album, the twelfth of his long career, which now stretches across four decades. A short break since the last record usually means creative freshness the artist wants to cash in on as fast as possible with a new release, but sadly »Hell in a Handbasket« does nothing to confirm that unwritten rule.
Most people remember the American vocalist Meat Loaf for the famous »Bat Out of Hell« trilogy, which didn’t just bring him worldwide fame and a pile of cash, but also, thanks to its success (especially the first part from 1977), puts him among the best-selling rock acts of all time going by the sales figures. But comparing today’s Meat Loaf to the not-so-distant glory days of Bat Out of Hell is simply out of place. Not only is his voice no longer as mighty as it once was, but the main reason is a kind of half-hostile relationship with the architect of his success, songwriter Jim Steinman. Steinman is the chief creator of Meat Loaf’s success, but sadly the two have been camped on opposite banks of the river for years now (in the previous decade they even dragged each other through the courts), and nothing suggests they’ll ever shake hands again in this lifetime and write another hit together.
Meat Loaf was thus forced to lure songwriters into his camp from all over the place. He kept a few collaborators from the making of the previous album »Hang Cool Teddy Bear«, but otherwise thoroughly reshuffled the deck around him. A lineup of songwriters picked eeny-meeny-miny-moe style rules out, right from the start, a deeper concept album where the songs form a pleasing, well-rounded whole. Even more absurd was Loaf’s promo bluster ahead of the release, when he described »Hell in a Handbasket« as »the work that describes him best of anything in his entire career«. Considering that, as usual, he was involved in its creation only as an outside observer and only got actively stuck in during the performance stage of recording, the claim is pretty laughable.
The twelve tracks (whose running order differs slightly between the European/American and Australian versions) follow the logical steps of the previous two albums, since next to his classic sound Meat Loaf comes across as more and more commercial. The reason is the beefed-up role of the guitars, which slowly but steadily push the piano out of its place as the central building block of the songs. If Meat Loaf’s voice and piano accompaniment once made a killer tandem and created some unforgettable rock opera anthems, today the piano has been demoted to a side role building atmosphere, a good example being 40 Days. The duets with a female voice have lost all their pomp too. Patti Russo, Loaf’s musical partner for a solid two decades now, struggles with her heartfelt turn on Our Love and Our Souls to match the composition of Loaf’s hit I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That), where the male and female vocals build a tense atmosphere through dialogue that peaks in an anthemic chorus. Not a single track has the charisma of a potential radio hit, though a couple of decent rockers, All of Me and Live or Die, do manage to claw their way out of the gray (sub)average. It’s as if the songwriters didn’t realize that Meat Loaf’s main asset is a mighty, pompous voice. On »Hell in a Handbasket«, with his innate sense of theatrical delivery, the vocals never once manage to carry the listener off into their own world.
Meat Loaf reaches the peak of mocking his own classic sound with two tracks, Blue Sky/Mad Mad World/The Good God is a Woman and She Don’t Like Ugly and Stand in the Storm, which feature assorted hip hop eminences. Their rapping is extremely irritating if you’re rooted deep in the classic rock sound. If nothing else, at least some of the song titles are still long as intestines, you’ll say! A kind of tribute to his musical beginnings, when Meat Loaf played in psychedelic bands in California in the late sixties, is the cover of The Mamas & The Papas hit California Dreamin’ with its intense, crowd-pleasing interplay of male and female vocals.
With »Hell in a Handbasket«, Meat Loaf keeps inching toward a more modern sound, in both style and songwriting. The only question is: who’s it for? Even if, after a string of average albums over the last decade, the American vocalist wished for another unexpected rise, like the one he pulled off in 1993 after a lukewarm eighties, this changed formula of flirting with trendy, popular (pop) rock surely won’t get him there.
Lineup
Paul Crook – guitar, keyboards, synthesizer
Randy Flowers – guitar, backing vocals
Danny Miranda – bass guitar
Justin Avery – piano, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals
Dave Luther – saxophone, backing vocals
John Miceli – drums, percussion
Patti Russo – lead female vocals (10), vocals (7), backing vocals
Jamie Muhoberac – keyboards, synthesizer (1, 8, 10)
Guests:
Ginny Luke – violin (5)
Caitlin Evanson – fiddle (6)
Glen Duncan – mandolin (9)
Bruce Bowden – foot stomps (11)
Jerry Flowers – backing vocals (4)
Chuck D – rap vocals (4)
Mark McGrath – vocals (10)
John Rich / Trace Adkins – vocals (10)
Lil Jon – rap, drum programming (10)
Production
Paul Crock, Lil Jon
Track list
1. All of Me
2. The Giving Tree
4. Blue Sky/Mad Mad World/The Good God is a Woman and She Dont Like Ugly
3. Live or Die
5. California Dreamin’
6. Party of One
7. Another Day
8. 40 Days
9. Our Love and Our Souls
10. Stand in the Storm
11. Blue Sky
12. Fall from Grace
