Meat Loaf has teamed up with songwriter Jim Steinman, who wrote most of the singer's biggest hits going back to Bat Out of Hell, for a new album, Braver Than We Are. The first single, "Going All the Way," is a multi-movement, symphonic-rock epic in the vein of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" with all the attendant melodrama of those hits.
The song features additional vocals by Ellen Foley, who sang on "Paradise," and Karla DeVito, who appeared in the "Paradise" video and sang Foley's parts on the Bat Out of Hell tour. The album, which will come out September 16th, features 10 never-before-released Steinman compositions; it contains the first tune he ever wrote up through his most recent songs, and it's the fourth album in Meat Loaf's oeuvre whose tracks were written solely by Steinman. The songwriter also had final approval on the mix and presentation of the songs before they were deemed finished. Former Anthrax guitarist Paul Crook – who produced Meat Loaf's last album, 2012's Hell in a Handbasket – helmed the album and played guitar on it.
"It's a tribute to Jim Steinman really," Meat Loaf said in a statement. "It's a tribute to both of us and our work together."
