Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose is a patchwork, pieced together from things borrowed and re-created, never quite gelling the way either of the previous BOOH albums did. Meat Loaf and producer/songwriter Desmond Child try to re-create their glory days, but they're not picky on how they get there; jarring shifts in tone are common as the album moves from song to song and within the tunes themselves, as Child's compositions chase after the grandeur of Jim Steinman's work (he wrote the first two BOOH albums) yet bear the marks of a professional playing a game without learning the rules. It's a brightly lit mess, but Meat Loaf sings his heart out as he valiantly tries to make this Bat a worthy successor.