​Steve Steinman - 'I Will Wear You Like A Crown'

So, with that as a background it's fair to say if you love a bit of the Meat then you are probably going to love this latest song from Steve.  

To call it a song does not do it justice, it's a well-constructed piece of music with words, harmony and melody pulled together in a single package where each element is as important as every other.  

There is a lot going on within the piece. What it's not, is a three-minute toe tapper. It comes in at just under 9 minutes and is a production that will sound and, I reckon, look spectacular in a long-format show setting. It has everything that’s needed to become that kind of centrepiece.  

It opens with a well-constructed guitar and piano part before Steve takes to the centre with his characteristic voice that crescendos up towards the first attacking peak of guitar and vocal. One guitar comes in before being joined by another for a double solo halfway through the piece. Then the emotion drops again, a la Meat, and Steve does what he does really well and starts reaching for the next build up all over again.  

The tempo remains solid but the intensity rises unmistakably towards that second peak. For me this is both audible and visual. I am listening to this on a WAV file and I can see just by looking at the folder there are another two drops and peaks to come. More guitar, more climbing vocal and now we are joined by what sounds like a choir in the role of backing singers – this is a big production piece of music and no mistake.

It's a musical piece that covers a lot of bases. There is no mistaking that Meat Loaf is sitting in the wings but so too are some prog rockers. The length of the track is very prog as is the time it allows for both guitar and keys which work brilliantly and add to the vocal Steve brings. The words take me back to a bit of dungeons and dragons rock, with references to Pegasus, dragons and demons. 

The ending is defined and well-judged rather than a fade out, which is where I thought it might have been going. I was glad to be wrong.

I’ve listened to this piece a great deal over a long weekend away. Every time I’ve shut my eyes to listen to it, I picture it in a big theatre centrepiece in a show which brings together the music of the likes of Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler and Styx. This is a tune for people who love that kind of thing and if that’s you, you are in for a treat. This is a fantastic nine minutes of music delivered by a man who knows his audience. This is in no small part because he is just as big a fan of this style of music as anyone who comes to his shows and it's that fan’s love of this genre that underpins his ability consistently deliver quality to his fan base.