The Album
Unknown Soldier: Mindfields would be Toto's third album of the decade and also their most all-encompassing and strongest without a doubt.
Anteater: Third time's the charm, as the saying goes eh? :P
Anteater: I like
Kingdom Of Desire and
Tambu, but
Mindfields from an objective sense is an improvement over both of those albums IMO.
Unknown Soldier: ........ and with Bobby Kimball back it was like a breath of fresh air as well.
Anteater: Right, Kimball had finally come back and has a nearly even split with Lukather on lead vocals throughout.
Anteater: I've seen many complaints about Kimball's inconsistencies as a live performer, but put him in a studio like on Mindfields and he seems to sound just fine.
Unknown Soldier: I'd say it was around a 70/30 split in Bobby's favor and that's one of the reasons why the album is stronger than the previous two. Well Bobby was well known for using certain substances that would probably affect his live performances.
Unknown Soldier: Even David Paich makes a very rare vocal lead on the final song (I thionk it's a bonus track)
Anteater: Yeah, Spanish Steps Of Rome. He sounds pretty gravely on it too. It suits him, but I think his voice has changed quite a bit since the early 80's.
Unknown Soldier: Well I didn't even recognize him and if he sounds this gravely better not to sing.
Unknown Soldier: Also the album has some interesting contributions from Timothy B.Schmidt and Richard Page to name just two and even Joseph Williams is on the writing credits for one track.
Anteater: Yeah, there's some diverse credentials here, maybe moreso than any other Toto album.
Anteater: And speaking of which, the collaboration that's most interesting is opening track 'After You're Gone', which Lukather wrote with ex-Ozzy Osbourne bassist Phil Soussan.
Anteater: He was on The Ultimate Sin
Unknown Soldier: Yes I noticed that and that shared credit stands out.
Anteater: But the whole album is like that in a way: there's lots of contributions between all kinds of people outside of the core Toto lineup, and as a result you get a surprising amount of diversity in terms of style between many of these songs.
Unknown Soldier: surprisingly the album was poorly received by critics that called it a 'contrived plodder' admittedly it's an album that took me a while to get into but in general for me there are no really poor tracks. I'd split the tracks into a split of being strong to a number of others being somewhat meh.
Anteater: It would look a bit like a horizontal zigzag on a chart I guess
Anteater: Some songs are really strong, others not. Kingdom Of Desire had a more unified aesthetic so you could forgive the weaker material, but I don't know if that excuse can apply to more traditional recordings.
Anteater: There's quite a few songs here that kick ass though
Unknown Soldier: Well I think the majority of the weaker tracks here are the Steve Lukather lead tracks and the weaker material sits around the middle section of the album.
Unknown Soldier: Well for me three really stick out
Unknown Soldier: with five other really solid tracks.
Anteater: I can try to guess those three...but I'll just go down the ones I like and why
Unknown Soldier: ok
Anteater: Opener 'After You're Gone' is an early highlight for me, and yet another new kind of entrance for the group. It has a weird Beatles/Led Zeppelin chord progression and a laidback Californian kind of psychedelic melody.
Anteater: Very smooth stuff though, and Toto on top of their game!
Unknown Soldier: I like it despite not being one of the three, but it is a drifter with a laidback californian style.
Anteater: So its one of the other five for you
Unknown Soldier: Yes
Anteater: In my case, I divide Mindfields into great and average
Anteater: Thankfully, it doesn't have an overabundance of ballads like Tambu and KoD had
Unknown Soldier: As said 3 great for me, 5 solid and 6 average.
Anteater: The first half of the album is interesting, because from 'After You're Gone' we move into a cross between Santana and power-pop in 'Mysterious Ways' and the intriguing title track.
Anteater: The title track is actually another highlight for me despite an odd reggae-like shuffle going on in the keyboards all throughout. Great, great chorus.
Unknown Soldier: "Mysterious Ways" for me it's the song that announces that Bobby's back, it's also very upbeat and the shortest track on the album.
Unknown Soldier: "Mindfields" is one of the great tracks for me especially with the incorporation of that reggae beat and it's a great 6 min track.
Anteater: It ended up on one of their greatest hits compilations that came out after this album
Anteater: And for me it's Kimball's first big shining moment on the album (though 'Mysterious Ways' ain't bad).
Unknown Soldier: "High Price of Hate" straight after it, is the second great track for me and it's whopping 9 mins of quality.
Anteater: The "Lukather does slow-burning blues rock" done right eh?
Anteater: Brings us back to Kingdom Of Desire a bit, and I agree that it's very good.
Unknown Soldier: Oh yer these guys have done their homework with that early 1970s bluesy sound.
Unknown Soldier: I think it's better than anything on Kingdom of Desire, largely because Bobby Kimball knows how to sing this type of thing.
Anteater: As much as I love Kingdom Of Desire, I definitely wouldn't have minded Kimball coming back on that album.
Unknown Soldier: It would have been perfect for him
Unknown Soldier: I might as well mention here the third great track in my trilogy and that has to be "Caught in the Balance" perfectly suited for Bobby's voice.
Anteater: By this point, anyone listening to Mindfields has probably noticed that the immense mixing and production quality we heard on Tambu has carried over to this one.
Unknown Soldier: Same production team.
Anteater: I believe so, though I can't remember if Elliot Scheiner (Steely Dan, amongst others) was involved in Tambu too.
Unknown Soldier: yes he was.
Anteater: I think my big four "highlights" as far as Mindfields go are 'After You're Gone', the title track, 'Mad About You' and 'Better World'.
Anteater: ...though all the longer songs here, including High Price Of Hate and Caught In The Balance (as you mentioned) are right up there too.
Unknown Soldier: 'Mad About You' for me is quite average and a Better World one of the most ambitious.
Anteater: 'Mad About You' takes us right back to early 80's Toto though...that melody could have been on IV.
Anteater: A welcome throwback in some ways.
Unknown Soldier: Maybe I should listen to it again, even though I know the album pretty well, obviously not like the first seven but much better than Kingdom of Desire and Tambu.
Anteater: You were tuned out of Toto by the late 90's for the most part though right?
Anteater: This came out right on the verge of the 2000's.
Unknown Soldier: Exactly right.
Anteater: Anyway, 'Better World' is pretty awesome and it comes right at the end of the album.
Unknown Soldier: I don't think it's as awesome as you do but it is an ambitious closer.
Anteater: It's their 3rd or maybe 4th time they've put out something like a suite / progressive rock piece, and it has that great keyboard/guitar interplay we've gotten a taste of on songs like Jake To The Bone or even 'Home Of The Brave' from The Seventh One
Unknown Soldier: Home of the Brave will always be my pick from those three.
Unknown Soldier: Mindfields also links up well with the Livefields album that came out the following year and worth mentioning here.
Anteater: I saw some live footage that corresponded with that album too awhile back: they were on fire in a good way.
Anteater: In any case, most of the weaker material on Mindfields isn't even bad. Stuff like 'No Love' or 'Last Love' just don't bring anything interesting to the table unless you want more blues-rock lite.
Unknown Soldier: What I like about Livefields is the interesting choices of tracks, for example there is no "Africa" or "Hold the Line" and they have some really strong Bobby (only) tracks on there like "Mama" and "You Are the Flower"
Unknown Soldier: Those two are among the weakest for me and I'm not mad on "Cruel" either.
Unknown Soldier: What's your opinion on the single "Melanie"?
Anteater: 'Cruel' atleast has some jazziness going for it. The horns are a nice change of pace. 'Melanie' isn't a terrible song, but its not as good as a "pop" single as Mad About You or the title track are.
Unknown Soldier: It had to be the single I guess 1) It's a woman's name 2) It's sung by Steve. L
Anteater: Don't get me wrong though: I do like it. But in this case, the pop song with Kimball wins out
Anteater: Critics really like Steve Lukather. I remember reading one guy from either Kerrang! or somewhere else saying him becoming permanent lead vocalist made the band "listenable" for him.
Anteater: ...and AllMusic reviewers say something similar on their reviews of KoD and Tambu
Anteater: so take that for what you will.
Unknown Soldier: Yes I know and I can't believe those reviews concerning Steve.L as the main vocalist and their love for those albums.
Anteater: Meanwhile, the guy who reviewed Mindfields on AMG says the following on his 1 and a half star review: "Overlong, overwrought, and devoid of personality, this incredibly dull world-view update of Toto's crassly professional sound manages to pillage several cultures at once without contributing a single song worth remembering. The playing is tight -- as you would expect from a bunch of studio session musicians -- but all the skills in the world can't liven these 14 plodding tracks."
Anteater: Pompous scrub
Anteater: Makes me wonder if there's some deep seated dislike of Bobby Kimball by "professional" reviewers in the industry :
Unknown Soldier: I guess somebody could reach this conclusion on the album if 1) they don't have much knowledge of the band or 2) Just had a quick listen
Unknown Soldier: The album cover is also one of the best and as it's your avatar you think highly of it as well.
Anteater: Yeah, there was a time where I was really excited over Mindfields after spending more time with it and I did some cropping of the cover for my MB avatar
Anteater: Maybe I should buy some memorabilia when I see Toto live in a few months.
Unknown Soldier: they're in Texas soon then?
Anteater: Yeah! They're touring with Yes.
Unknown Soldier: wow interesting combo right there.
Anteater: Anyway, I would say that AMG reviewer is off base in his assessment of Mindfields, especially since there are plenty of songs on the album that aren't long or "overwrought"
Anteater: Just typical lazy journalism.
Anteater: It would have been 3 1/2 stars if I had been the reviewer.
Unknown Soldier: If out of 5 I'd go for 3.5 or 4.0 there.
Anteater: The 90's Toto period ranks like this for me: KoD - 4 stars, Tambu - 3 stars, Mindfields 3.5 stars.
Anteater: Stuff like The Seventh One or the first album are 5 stars.
Unknown Soldier: KoD 3.5 Tambu 3.0 Mindfields 4.0 but if I put Mindfields 3.5 the other two albums would be .5 less
Anteater: That's a fair ranking.
Unknown Soldier: So with ten studio albums Toto ended the decade.