PARADISE FOUND: BAT OUT OF HELL REIGNITED

[proctorloaf]

Here's what I thought... what did you think of the new version of Bat?

There are so many reminders of just what a special artist Meat Loaf was. His voice was truly stratospheric. 20 superb musical theatre performers combined can't touch him in Bat out of Hell the musical. Tyce Green has an awesome voice with a southern style, again there's no comparison. Even the DIVA of our time Danielle Steers doesn't hold a candle to Meat.

This new recording of Bat out of Hell by Meat's Band the Neverland Express, produced by Paul Crook is another example of how Meat was a super-human powerhouse. Caleb Johnson has one of the best rock voices in the industry today but he doesn't once show us his soul on these recordings. His voice is like butter but he never sounds heartbroken or gasping for his last breath struggling to say "I love you" one last time. He never lives the song. Not even for a moment. He takes the melodies to church but he has never been baptised.

I will say this tho, the guitars on this record are awesome.

[letsgotoofar]

It's a better mix than when I bought it for nine bucks back in 2018 when it looked like this:

https://mljs.evilnickname.org/assets/images/otherchildren/calebjohnson-bat.jpg

Instead of this:

https://e.snmc.io/i/600/w/15493e100c41ec138a0581a26abc9bea/10648350/the-neverland-express-caleb-johnson-paradise-found-bat-out-of-hell-reignited-Cover-Art.jpg

Money for old rope in pure business principles, if you ask me. But hey, it sounds better in this mix than the old one, I guess.

[proctorloaf]

I agree - I got the old version too and Paul confirmed it was the same recordings, with additional material and a better mix.

[AndrewG]

I find this type of thing really weird.

You guys just reminded me of this album so I am listening to their Bat right now.

It is good. No denying. Really, really good!

At the SAME time, it is SO frickin' strange. The better the tribute becomes, the less I find it interesting to listen to. I find it less artistic, less creative, I hear less heart, I hear less surprises, hear less love and have no reactions along the lines of "Hey, that part is REALLY well done, you nailed it, that reminded me of the original, top job, I feel I should give the person credit for that."

I'd be more inclined listening to an amateur play Bat out of Hell on a glockenspiel for the first time than this EVER again.

Is it just me?

[madagascar]

Here's what I thought... what did you think of the new version of Bat?

There are so many reminders of just what a special artist Meat Loaf was. His voice was truly stratospheric. 20 superb musical theatre performers combined can't touch him in Bat out of Hell the musical. Tyce Green has an awesome voice with a southern style, again there's no comparison. Even the DIVA of our time Danielle Steers doesn't hold a candle to Meat.

This new recording of Bat out of Hell by Meat's Band the Neverland Express, produced by Paul Crook is another example of how Meat was a super-human powerhouse. Caleb Johnson has one of the best rock voices in the industry today but he doesn't once show us his soul on these recordings. His voice is like butter but he never sounds heartbroken or gasping for his last breath struggling to say "I love you" one last time. He never lives the song. Not even for a moment. He takes the melodies to church but he has never been baptised.

I will say this tho, the guitars on this record are awesome.

Proctorloaf, you took the words right out of my mouth.
I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Evil One]

Fair play to anyone who likes this but it's not for me. The musicianship is excellent, but Caleb's vocals don't kick me in the balls in the same way Meat Loaf's do.

[anotherday]

Its good.
Its what we have to keep the music alive, since whoever owns all of this shit now seemingly will do nothing with it and Meats wife doesn't care about the vault.

[stretch37]

Its good.
Its what we have to keep the music alive, since whoever owns all of this shit now seemingly will do nothing with it and Meats wife doesn't care about the vault.

I really hope she does care about it and making sure what Meat wanted done gets done. He wanted HCTB re-released. He had other ideas I am sure he communicated to Paul and Deborah. Hopefully once more time has passed (for heaven's sake, it's only been a year and this is Meat Loaf we're talking about!) these ideas of his - his unfinished business - will become more of an important focus. For now, Paradise Found and the NLE touring Meat Loaf songs with another amazing singer is a wonderful thing to have. Nothing will ever replace Meat, and I am always glad to hear that they're not trying to. Paul is keeping the band together. Trying to keep Meat's legacy together and likely continue his work.

I like to think of the NLE as akin to a karate dojo that Meat owned/founded. Meat's dead and Paul's the highest ranking Sensei now with other senior members collaborating to support him/each-other. We will get to witness how the dojo transitions from "Meat Loaf's Club/Dojo" to more of a "community/association dojo". After hearing how Paul thinks about this, it really does seem like this is an effort in equal parts to a) to keep the group together and practicing their craft (and making $$) and b) to keep Meat's life work alive and meaningful and beneficial to the wider community/the public. Paul seems to genuinely care about this based on his words/actions in the years leading up to Meat's death and since.

I saw an article that named Caleb as the heir apparent. I feel like that's actually Paul. Paul is Meat's protégé. They had something special. I feel like everything will build from there. Meat will live on through Paul and currently, well, IS.

The question now is: what does this all mean? I feel like Meat probably communicated with Paul exactly what/when/why/how he would want work released posthumously. He knew he was getting up there. He even said 1 year before he died that he might 'die this year' after Jim's death. When people start saying things like that, they're usually right. It's sad, but people affirming that shouldn't be ignored. Hopefully, folks were listening. Hopefully, there's a plan. Once Paul has more time to go through that grief cycle and gets into the right headspace, hopefully we'll start to see some of this stuff come out. I don't think the guy gets enough credit. He's grieving the loss of his best friend and mentor, AND carrying his legacy/life's work and keeping his band together. This guy's amazing. Sure, there's money to be made, but this is more than that, isn't it?

The only thing I'm uncertain about is who has access to Meat's vault. Would his wife sign off on Paul continuing to check off some of Meat's to-do list that he had before his passing? (the mysterious HCTB re-release, the Anything For Love TV show, etc). Hopefully, Deborah would be willing to work with Paul on this. She really seemed to love Meat in the truest sense of the term. So did Paul. That shared love for Meat and Meat's wishes may be enough to help this along.

Thoughts?

[mickp]

This mix sounds great with some extra overlays of guitars etc. I think it’s a sympathetic and fitting tribute to Meat, and Jim. I see it as a tribute to the songs that made their careers so I’m listening to the whole song rather than the vocals in isolation. I think Caleb does a great job, and the arrangements have enough of the live ‘changes’ to make it different. Looking forward to the show in Manchester. Nice touch with Steve Buslowe on bass, taking it right back to 78. I do hope the Meat archive gets opened up over time though, concerts through the ages, restored. Rare tracks. The same way Springsteen has curated his archives. I’d be interested to see if Caleb records some of the Jim songs that Meat was plannnig for his next album, almost in production when he sadly passed

[proctorloaf]

I understand this POV but I'm not a fan of Paul's direction of Meat's sound. I completely get the fact that Paul was steering Meat to a modern sound but for me it's too LA. Meat said in later interviews that he preferred guitar based music and wasn't a fan of the more piano based songs but for me, it's the conversations between the piano and guitar which make the music so exciting. I think we lost this balance with the later live shows. I was much more of a fan of Kasim and Steve's musical direction. (I do love Paul - I'm just so sonically tied into the 1993 - 2006 sound)

Bat / Meat Loaf celebration was created to keep the band going and to set up Meat's warm up tour with a view to him going back out on the road. Now that this can't happen. I hope that the band completes the current tour and then moves on. Caleb is an amazing singer but he is not the leader of the NLE and whilst these memorial concerts are needed - I'm going 3 times - I think this should be the end of this chapter.

[jcmoorehead]

Gave it a listen the other day and I really enjoyed it. I like the updated sounds to it, obviously Caleb isn't Meat so it's different in that regard but he's bloody fantastic and does a good job of it, you can tell he has a lot of passion for what he's doing and he can pull off those songs.

I would def like to hear his interpretation of other tracks from Meats history.

[Lee B]

I've got tickets to go to see them in May, so I finally got around to listening to this yesterday. Massively underwhelmed. I think Calebs voice is too.... clean. It needs more of a rock edge to it. And my ten year old son laughed at the start of "Took the Words" and said it sounded like a Christmas song!
We followed it up with a listen to the real deal.
What I will say though, in a positive light, the guitars are fantastic.

[AndrewG]

And my ten year old son laughed at the start of "Took the Words" and said it sounded like a Christmas song!

He's right. I think the backing vocals sound too childish.
They suck.

Weirdly, even when rock artists use that sort of school backing vocals (see Thirty Seconds To Mars "This is war" on multiple songs) it doesn't even sound as childish as that!