Trollheart

Which is odd, as every time I read the title I think Paul Young: "By the look in your eye, I can tell you're gonna cry: is it over me?"

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Chula Vista

Juke Box Hero was worth the price of the album alone.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Anteater

If you liked 4, you'd really dig this one too. Similar vibe.

Michael Thompson Band - How Long (1989)

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Unknown Soldier

It's a lyric from the second Toto album (I changed one word)

Foreigner are rough around the edges AOR and Lou Gramm's vocals fit the sound.

You might like this as well and play it loud.

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

An attempt at nostalgia with a hint of something new.

The Lowdown
After The Seventh One it would take Toto almost four years to release their next studio album Kingdom of Desire in 1992 and this would also be a less than impressive time for the band musically as well. Musically the band would continue touring and would put out what could be described as nostalgic releases in their Past to Present album which is featured here and the album operated as a celebration album rather than a greatest hits type of thing. The following year's Greatest Hits Live...... and More would be more of a best hits type of thing but in a live setting. The man chosen to front the band at this time was Jean-Michel Byron (who we'll be discussing below) and luckily he only stuck around for this period and Steve Lukather also released his first solo album in this period as well. Finally the album Past to Present 1977-1990 is a 13 track 'best of' album that features four new songs with Jean-Michel Byron which is the only reason why we're discussing it.

The album
Unknown Soldier: After The Seventh One which saw the departure of another lead vocalist in Joseph Williams, the band wouldn't release another studio album for four years and in the meantime would hit an all-time low, do you agree with this?
Anteater: I think things started to go pretty "badly" to put it lightly and it was probably their most chaotic era, or at least the start of it
Unknown Soldier: Firstly the band were bold in appointing a black vocalist into the band but in essence their sound was suited to this direction. The problem was though he was so gay sounding and that dancing of his .............
Anteater: Columbia wanted Toto to get "hip" with the times I suppose, and to that end I suppose you could do worse than a Terrence Trent D'Arby knockoff
Anteater: I'm supposing a lot here, but that's because I honestly have no idea who came up with the idea, since it’s a pretty boneheaded idea
Anteater: Guys like Terrence (and I suppose Seal) would have at least been more interesting choices than this guy though: he's not as talented as any of the major players he's emulating.
Unknown Soldier: He was called Jean-Michel Byron from South Africa and had a wig of hair that any girl or glam artist would've been proud of.
Anteater: He's a big step down from Joseph Williams, but perhaps he was a blessing in disguise too.
Unknown Soldier: Why a blessing, a wake-up call perhaps?
Unknown Soldier: He also had a decent voice as you'd expect, but as you say he was a knockoff of more famous guys like Terrence Trent D’Arby and of course Seal was great.
Anteater: Byron's absolutely abysmal contributions basically convinced Lukather he needed to become the band's leader and vocalist full-time. Which was a key element in setting the stage for Kingdom Of Desire and future albums
Unknown Soldier: Well it was the logical conclusion I guess after the vocalists that they had and especially since they couldn't keep quality vocalists like Fergie and Joseph on board
Unknown Soldier: Anyway in this period the band released two 'best of' albums, Past to Present 1977 to 1990 where we'll mention the four new songs and a Greatest Hits Live..... and More the following year.
Anteater: Toto was in full nostalgia mode at this point, but I guess they really had no choice
Unknown Soldier: Anyway let’s cut to the chase with the four songs that were all co-written with Jean Michel Byron to try and incorporate him into the band.

The Four Songs
Anteater: Indeed. They start with the relative "best" of those four, the lengthy 'Love Is The Power'
Unknown Soldier: The best hahaha you're funny!
Anteater: It's the one Jeff Porcaro liked………for whatever that's worth lol
Unknown Soldier: It has that tacky South African intro with JMB entering with a spoken intro, to be fair the song has a decent if somewhat generic groove to it and I remember that they played this at the concert when I saw them in 1990/1991
Anteater: Oh, I think it’s pretty naff and all, but of the four songs it’s the one with the most Toto "identity" it has the wo-oh-ohs, the extended shuffle groove, etc. but generic? You bet your ass it is.
Unknown Soldier: Next "Out of Love"
Anteater: I’d like to substitute the 'Love" part of that song's title with "Out Of *insert other words here* and let's just call it Out Of Ideas
Anteater: It’s a boring bluesy ballad. Byron brings absolutely nothing to it either.
Unknown Soldier: The video is just as boring and surprise surprise it takes place in an empty bar (apart from the band of course) The Cars on "Drive" made an empty bar look cool, Toto don't.
Anteater: Guess people saw they were going to play there with their "new" singer and said "**** it"
Unknown Soldier: Best thing about the video is JMB's lippy and perm.
Unknown Soldier: I’m listening to the song now and it's painful.
Anteater: I can't make it through again either
Anteater: Even Lukather's most generic ballads sound like Bohemian Rhapsody compared to this thing
Unknown Soldier: They sure do and next up is "Can You Hear What I'm Saying" and to be fair it's an improvement over the previous song due to its upbeat feel.
Anteater: It has some energy, but Byron just doesn't work at all.
Anteater: He's too listless, the hook's a bit weak too
Unknown Soldier: I'd agree with that and finally we have "Animal"
Anteater: I have no words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1356oa_qcc8
Anteater: I know you didn't like "You Got Me" from The Seventh One, but surely you can hear the difference between that MJ impersonation and this one in terms of "quality" eh? :P
Unknown Soldier: Sure I can spot it now that you mention it. I should point out that until this week I hadn't listened to these four songs in like 15 years.
Unknown Soldier: In that live video JMB looks like he's priming himself for a male striptease.
Anteater: Hahahaha

Conclusion
Anteater: Now that we've made it through the pain of these four songs, are your impressions "better" than 15 years ago?
Unknown Soldier: No not at all, but I should point out around the early 1990s I was distinctly off Toto and didn't even bother with Kingdom of Desire until a few years after its release, this downward opinion was of course due to this crappy period from the band.
Anteater: I never went through anything like that, but that just shows how different the music discovery process is for someone typically in my generation than, say, someone who lived through the 80's and 90's.
Unknown Soldier: When you grow up with a band it's kind of different, as somebody like you had most of their discography to choose from when you got into the band.
Anteater: Yep! Kinda thankful for that though. I didn't even know Past To Present had four songs from this guy on it til like....2013.
Anteater: But I also rarely look into Best Of collections or even live albums. Just not as interested in them as studio recordings.
Unknown Soldier: I'm hoping that anybody reading this won't waste their time with them either, referring of course to the four songs here.
Anteater: They have been warned...but thankfully what's coming next is actually a pleasant surprise in most ways.

Now it was decided for the reputation of the band and this journal, that the four woeful songs discussed above wouldn't be placed here. But for anyone that wants to hear how generic they sound and experience Jean-Michel Byron prancing around the place, there is always YouTube.

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Anteater

The Lowdown
Despite a successful international tour under their belt, Toto’s ‘The Seventh One’ failed to gain the momentum the band had hoped for, leading to the group splitting from longtime label Columbia. Joseph Williams dropped out of the group due to a combination of drug and voice related problems, and Steve Porcaro followed not long afterwards. Between that and the ‘Past To Present’ best-of tour debacle, Paich, Lukather and Jeff decided to go back to the drawing board and just “jam out” for awhile. The result of this was 1992’s Kingdom Of Desire, an album that saw Lukather taking on almost 100% of all vocal duties on top of lead guitar and an almost drastic sonic shift of Toto’s overall sound into jazz-laced hard rock/blues rock territory.

Unfortunately, just as the album was finished and released, tragedy struck yet again with the sudden death of drummer Jeff Porcaro, who at that point was one of the most prolific drummers in existence. His death threw the band into the kind of chaos that would destroy most acts, but everyone pulled together for a hugely successful tour with the help of a lot of people, including newly inducted drummer Simon Phillips (Jeff Beck, The Who, etc.), who stepped in at Lukather’s request.

The album had minor hits everywhere except the U.S., and thus Toto put their AOR days behind them and moved forward into an uncertain future…

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Anteater

The Album

Anteater: So how familiar are you with this album Unknown Soldier? I was actually alive when this album was released, though only a few years old. Is it something you disliked at first and then went back to later?

Unknown Soldier: Well I was distinctly off the band when this album came out due to the debacle with Jean-Michel Byron and with both Joseph Williams and Steve Porcaro bailing out. I don't remember buying it until a few years later and even then I just bought it to complete the band collection.

Unknown Soldier: When I did get it I was immediately thumped if you like on just how heavy and funky it sounded. It’s without a doubt the heaviest sounding album in the band discography to that point.

Anteater: Yeah, it's Toto's heaviest album as of 2015 as well. Very unique sounding and one of my favorites overall.

Anteater: There's some strange things about it though, change in musical direction aside…

Anteater: The album cover is pretty macabre for instance.

Anteater: …and it was painted by Jeff Porcaro less than two weeks before he died.

Unknown Soldier: I was about to comment on that as well, but it's amazing how these tragic occurrences have often followed musicians around.

Anteater: If Toto had been some other band, Kingdom Of Desire would have been the swansong.

Unknown Soldier: kind of like what happened with Led Zeppelin after John Bonham died.

Anteater: Makes the fact that a mostly intact lineup released an album only a month ago pretty amazing, when you consider everything these guys have been through since '78

Anteater: Yeah, Led Zeppelin was out the door before the 80's hit because of Bonham's death. Might partly be why they are univerally associated with the decade and nothing beyond it.

Anteater: They got started right as the 70's began then died off before it came to a close.

Unknown Soldier: Well some bands just go on through all kinds of disaster whilst other just throw the towel in.

Anteater: Yeah, and Toto are definitely in the former camp.

Unknown Soldier: Now before we get into the album, I know that you like it right?

Anteater: Very much so. It's in my top 3.

Unknown Soldier: Well you obviously like it a lot more than I do, which is surprising as I usually really like Toto when they do get heavy.

Anteater: It's a "love it or hate it" kind of album though for both Toto fans and non-fans though. Some of the heavier musical ideas and philosophical touches lyrically that The Seventh One had are actually expanded upon in Kingdom Of Desire.

The Songs

Unknown Soldier: Well the album starts with the almost Jimi Hendrix sounding "Gypsy Train"

Unknown Soldier: In regards to the song title of course

Anteater: What's the phrase I would use for this particular song...."rollicking" maybe?

Anteater: There's even a touch of bar room sleaze

Unknown Soldier: I call it a heavy thumper


Anteater: I really dig it, though I'm sure every Toto fan who first heard it probably were scratching their heads in confusion

Anteater: "Isn't Lukather the guy who sings those lame ballads?"

Anteater: "Did I buy a Bad Company album on accident?"

Anteater: etc. etc.

Unknown Soldier: Well I think most of the album would throw most Toto fans and if you remember right from the word go, I always thought of Lukather as the rocker of the band, even though he always sang the ballads.

Anteater: To these ears, 'Gypsy Train' is the sound of a band not giving a ****.

Unknown Soldier: His only real rockers before this had been "Live for Today" a poor song and "Afraid of Love" a good song.

Anteater: And its great. Not in the same way as The Seventh One or Isolation, but very interesting once you let it sink in.

Unknown Soldier: I also think this album is a reaction to the lame sounding Jean-Michel Byron period.

Anteater: Haha, this material is so beyond a guy like Byron that its funny to think about it.

Anteater: One other note I'll make is 'Gypsy Train' is the longest opening song on a Toto record so far since 1979's Hydra.

Unknown Soldier: It's a beefy sounding album for sure and fairly bold by Lukather to completely take over the vocal duties, but of course he had already released his first solo album.

Unknown Soldier: Hell every song on this album is long!

Anteater: That's a mix of Luke and Jeff Porcaro's influence I think: they were both itching to move beyond pure radio format stuff.

Anteater: Lukather's solo outing from a few years before this also had a heavier Blues and L.A. jazz-fusion influence: the fact so much of it has bled into Toto's core sound by 1992 shows that he's become the leader of the band.

Anteater: anyway, the bluesy "rock band rocking out at the local watering hole" aesthetic is almost uniformly consistent across Kingdom Of Desire from start to finish, and next track 'Don't Chain My Heart" is a clear representative of this direction.

Unknown Soldier: Agreed and even his appearance had changed as well. If you check out the "Don't Chain My Heart" a single and the second track on the album, the video has him looking like Ian Gillan with a guitar, especially in that leather waistcoat and barechested underneath.

Anteater: Could this be the so called "glam" or "hair metal" influence of L.A. music and fashion of the time finally needling its way into the group?
Unknown Soldier: Well have you ever seen the video for the Black Sabbath "Zero the Hero" track with Ian Gillan on vocals?

Anteater: Not recently, but I do remember it

Unknown Soldier: Check it out it's one of my fav ever videos.

Unknown Soldier: Next up "Never Enough" which again I like, as the band show there is still no sign of slowing down.

Anteater: It's a fun hard rocking track, infused with a certain world weariness

Unknown Soldier: co-written with Fee Waybill from The Tubes another one of my all time fav bands. Steve Lukather had a few writing credits on Tubes albums, so I guess he was returing the favour here and to be fair it does sound a bit like a Fee Waybill track (as he was a solo artist at this time) usually working with Richard Marx as well.


Anteater: I like it a lot. Three tracks in now and we get a sense that overall mood is consistent to the point where the album feels more like one extended session than a bunch of strung together stuff that's been primed for radio.

Unknown Soldier: Well "How Many Times" continues this trend of four in a row.

Anteater: Yeah, I think we should jump around a bit and talk about the tracks that stand out on the album as opposed to continuing chronologically. This album was constructed completely different from their past records, and as a result you have some cuts that stand a bit higher above the "sea" that makes up the overall mood or experience.

Unknown Soldier: Now is a good time for me to mention as well, that the whole concept of albums had changed anyway due to the invasion of the CD. Albums had now gone from 30 and 40 mins to 60 and 70 mins and of course we no longer had the a and b side format either in most cases.

Anteater: Exactly: we've entered a brave new world, and Toto (atleast on this album) were taking advantage of it.

Unknown Soldier: People were getting greater value in terms of what they were paying and either getting a much longer album or outtakes and unreleased material etc

Unknown Soldier: ............ but in my opinion quality song for song was often lost and that is probably my main gripe with this album.

Anteater: Three high points for me are Wings Of Time, the title track and the closing instrumental Jake To The Bone.


Unknown Soldier: I think it's around 15 too long but I often aim that gripe at a lot of these bands around this time anyway.

Anteater: I think that criticism is definitely warranted

Anteater: but I don't mind it as much on Kingdom Of Desire because, when taken as a whole experience, it works really well.

Unknown Soldier: We have to mention of course the main ballad as well, which was due to come in "2 Hearts" which actually sounds more like a film soundtrack than anything else.

Anteater: Yeah, let’s touch on that: there are three ballads on the album, and of them '2 Hearts' is probably the best in terms of construction….

Anteater: …though I like 'The Other Side' a lot too, which strangely enough is a huge throwback to IV.

Unknown Soldier: "The Other Side" Is a nice song and the only traditional Toto song really on the album in terms of ballads. Whereas the other ballad "Only You" is more generic and could've appeared on something like Fahrenheit or any other rock album from this period.


Anteater: 'Only You' fits into the overall mood, but it doesn't do anything special either.

Anteater: As I mentioned before though, 'Wings Of Time' is a great longer piece, and the title track is one of the band's all time best songs ever.

Anteater: …Least if we're talking more progressive material.

Unknown Soldier: "Wings of Time" doesn't really do too much for me but the title track "Kingdom of Desire" is indeed a worthy track.

Unknown Soldier: Along with "Jake to the Bone" these tracks are like 7 mins anyway, which is actually pretty long.

Unknown Soldier: "Jake to the Bone" sounds like it could've been on the debut with its heavy use of different sounds.

Unknown Soldier: "Kingdom of Desire" is a real grower as a song and really needs quite a few listens.

Anteater: 'Jake To The Bone', interestingly enough, has proven to be a hugely influential song on a lot of Japanese jazz bands.

Unknown Soldier: A fact I didn't know.

Anteater: Hah. You hear it's influence in a lot of racing soundtracks in some of the games that came out over there in the mid 90's and beyond.

Unknown Soldier: Didn't know you were a games fan (cool!!)

Anteater: I am indeed. Back to music again - Lukather's guitar solo that starts in around 3:30 on Jake To The Bone is pretty inspiring in any case: what a great way to end the album!


Unknown Soldier: It's a great song as was the previous title track, but if I listen to this album in its entirety, I've normally nodded off on "Wings of Time".

Unknown Soldier: I usually enjoy this album more when I listen to the tracks more individually.

Unknown Soldier: For example 'random shuffle' I prefer with this album.

Anteater: Yeah, there's a couple of big ones to cherry pick.

Anteater: And you start to feel a bit sad as Jake To The Bone finishes though, because it was probably Jeff Porcaro's final drum performance.

Unknown Soldier: Well yes and I have a funny story about this and I guess this is the time to tell it (not funny of course as Jeff died) but it was funny in the context that I was told.

Unknown Soldier: As stated already I was off the band in 1992/1993 when this came out.

Unknown Soldier: I can remember going out on a Saturday night with a friend of mine and this particular Saturday night he invited his druggy guitarist cousin with him.

Unknown Soldier: The guy was a Brit but sounded like one of these druggies out of an American film. Anyway he informed me that Jeff had died and of course I was shocked and asked how he died.

Unknown Soldier: His words were "Hey man, the dude keeled over while watering the daisies in his garden, a heart attack from too much of the good stuff if you catch my drift"

Unknown Soldier: and that's how I learnt that Jeff died, no internet in those days.

Anteater: Hahahahahaha, that’s funny but somehow messed up too.

Unknown Soldier: It's something I always remember with both fondness and sadness.

Unknown Soldier: Anyway my criticism of the album is basically down to two big points.

Unknown Soldier: Firstly it's too damn long, the songs range from 4 to 7 mins and the album is 69 minutes long, this is no quick listen.

Unknown Soldier: The lack of variety on it leads me to point two.

Unknown Soldier: Secondly the great strength of Toto has always been its multiple vocalists. Ok after the previous problems I kind of understand why Steve Lukather took over all vocal duties. The problem is though that due to the similarity of most of the songs, there's not too much variety and if David Paich had sung on a couple of tracks it could've solved this issue.

Anteater: I agree with the second point a bit more than the first

Anteater: Kingdom Of Desire is a pure jam record. Most of the songs were all written within the same time frame and recorded probably hours to days apart in one place. As a result, you get a certain degree of consistency. The downside is that there's not a huge degree of brevity or variety.
Anteater: The band was in a certain "mood"and the album is a reflection of that.

Unknown Soldier: I agree about the jam factor and the lack of variety simply means that if you really did that sound you'll really like the album, well if not...............

Unknown Soldier: But it really must've been a head scratching listen for a lot of Toto fans out there.

Anteater: Kingdom Of Desire is one of my highway cruising records. When I'm in a certain zone or mood it works fantastically. Otherwise I usually just cherrypick Gypsy Train, the title track and Jake To The Bone and make a more general Toto playlist.

Anteater: It sounds unlike anything else in their entire recorded discography, so it gets points for uniqueness...even if those points might be a tad head-scratching. :P

Unknown Soldier: Well distances there are long, because in 69 minutes here you can go from one end of the country to the other

Unknown Soldier: That's an exaggeration of course, but it hints at my point.

Anteater: A polarizing album that, at the very least, is worth a few songs for those who don't dig the overall package. Enjoy folks!

__________________
Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Tambu would be the ninth studio album from Toto, coming three years after the surprising ear-drum blast that we were greeted with on Kingdom of Desire. The name Tambu comes from a genre of Caribbean music, which of course suggests that the mood for the Tambu album would be a lot more sedate than was found on Kingdom of Desire. Also the album cover is highlighted by an almost cartoon voodoo style comic that dominates the album cover, amongst a load of other miscellaneous items, which kind of indicates the thrown down and flowing essence of its material. Tambu would be a well-crafted Toto album with top notch production and engineering team to go with it, of which well-known producer, mixer and engineer Elliot Scheiner would heavily contribute to. The band at this time were now on the Sony label and the album would be nominated for an engineering grammy in 1997. It’s only single of note would be “I Will Remember” which unsurprisingly was a ballad.

The biggest thing of note though is the exclusion of Jeff Porcaro on the album who had sadly died in 1992 which meant that the band had lost what was probably their cornerstone musician. His replacement would be the highly rated British drummer Simon Phillips, a drummer with an equally impressive palmares that had worked with some of the biggest names in the business and these included Jon Anderson, Judas Priest, Mike Rutherford, Mike Oldfield, Jeff Beck and Toyah to name just a few and despite his drumming style being different to that of Jeff Porcaro he immediately slotted into the Toto line-up.

One final interesting thing of note according to Wiki, is that the release date for the album was May 1995 in Europe but North America had to wait for nearly a year before it got a release there in June 1996 and I think that this indicates where the Toto fanbase in terms of record sales was at around this time.

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

The Album
Anteater: So Jeff Porcaro has been dead a few years and things have settled back down a bit in Totoland, and Tambu is something of a tribute to him. By this point though, I don't think Toto were getting any real mainstream exposure anywhere in the U.S. at all
Unknown Soldier: So much so that yet again at the time I remember I never knew the album had come out till sometime after.
Unknown Soldier: Also by then old bands like Toto weren't really pushed by the labels it seemed, they preferred to go it seemed with something newer.
Anteater: which is weird because Sony was their label at this point and as usual the production team was top-notch.
Anteater: We haven't gotten into the songs or anything, but I'll go ahead and say that from a production standpoint 'Tambu' is fantastic.
Unknown Soldier: Oh agreed, the production is fantastic which is probably why it was nominated for a grammy!
Anteater: yeah, it was up for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical in '97
Anteater: This was the first album with drummer Simon Phillips, whose style is a bit different from Porcaro's.
Unknown Soldier: Well Simon Phillips has such a wide CV in the amount of albums he had played on before. From Judas Priest and Michael Schenker to Mike Rutherford and Mike Oldfield and then onto stuff like Toyah .......... and that's just naming a few.
Anteater: He's very well travelled, and he was one of Jeff's favorite drummers while he was alive too. So he fit in as good as anyone could at the time.
Unknown Soldier: I've never had any problem accepting Simon Phillips as the band's drummer.
Anteater: Neither did I: he's been drummer on a lot of my favorite Toto songs and recordings and I think his inclusion here also created yet another shift in sound from 1992's Kingdom Of Desire
Unknown Soldier: Same concept in that the album runs more or less the same kind of running time and without too much variety and Steve L singing everything (bar the duets)
Anteater: I'll disagree on the variety count: there's a lot more changes in tempo and overall mood here and even some overt funk-oriented material
Unknown Soldier: Well you know and appreciate the album a lot more than I do. I am of course listening to it as we speak and apart from the latest, it's the album that I know least of all.
Anteater: From a pure songwriting standpoint, I consider Tambu a bit more of a "success" thank Kingdom Of Desire despite the fact like the former a tad more due to its behemoth sound and uniqueness within their body of work.
Unknown Soldier: Well Kingdom of Desire kind of smashed the ears of the listener due to it overtly heavy feel, so that kind of took some of the pressure off the songwriting element of the album.
Unknown Soldier: Tambu doesn't attempt to hide imo in that respect anyway.
Anteater: It's a jazzier, funkier album. It also has a few surprisingly nice pop-rockers here and there too, such as the extended opener 'Gift Of Faith'.


Unknown Soldier: "Gift of Faith" does continue the band's tradition of choosing the right type of song to be the album opener
Anteater: It's a very 90's styled "believe in yourself" type of heartland rock piece, the kind of thing Bruce Springsteen might have done as an extended jam live or something.
Anteater: Toto at this point have definitely adapted in their own way to the changing times I guess
Unknown Soldier: In fact it kind of reminds me of an artist that i always forget the name of for some reason, I think he's a Texan btw and had a huge song around this time as well. I'll probably remember him a bit later.
Anteater: One thing on this album that's noticeable too are a lot of female backing vocals on a couple of songs and gives the whole album a vaguely 'spiritual' vibe
Unknown Soldier: Well that comes very quickly on the second track and principal single "I Will Remember"


Anteater: yeah, this one charted in the U.K. and also in Japan I think
Unknown Soldier: According to Wiki 67 in the UK chart.
Anteater: its a good song too, like Peter Gabriel gone super AOR. There's some nice percussion and texturing that serves as a meditative backdrop alongside some piano.
Unknown Soldier: Yes the percussion is nice and Lenny Castro an old Toto additional musician works on that song.
Anteater: I know your kind of leery about Lukather's ballads, but this one fares pretty well
Unknown Soldier: It's not too bad as far as Lukather ballads go
Unknown Soldier: You've mentioned a couple of times that one of your favourite Toto ballads is on one of these later albums?
Anteater: yeah, it comes midway through this album 'The Other End Of Time'
Unknown Soldier: As we're not doing these tracks in order as such, I've jumped to it to see what all the fuss is about.
Anteater: It just has a great melody and verse but not sure if its a better or worse ballad than I Will Remember, but since Tambu is all about reflection on life and death and stuff like that, it works really well in context too.
Unknown Soldier: Hate to break your heart, but it's one of the songs I switch off on, but sure it's the kind of thing that chicks really dig, especially with dim lights (cool)
Anteater: What can I say, I'm a big softie.
Anteater: For me the best stuff on the record aren't the ballads anyway though. The whole band contributed to songs like 'The Turning Point' for instance.
Unknown Soldier: "Turning Point" I do like and it's one of the better songs on the album and strangely enough my other favourite track is "Slipped Away". Both songs have exactly the same writing credits of: Lukather/Lynch/Paich/Phillips/Porcaro and they are the only two songs to do so.
Anteater: 'Slipped Away', 'Turning Point' and 'Time Is The Enemy' are all pretty swell
Anteater: There's a great soulful vibe going through them all in different ways


Unknown Soldier: "Time is the Enemy" has that funky start but the problem is that it sounds like a Level 42 song.
Anteater: I'd consider that a compliment haha, Level 42 were a musician's band too
Unknown Soldier: Never my kind of band but they were popular for a while here, hell what happened to them?
Anteater: They sorta phased out of popular consciousness by the early 90's, but they get together to tour live every so often. They had some great albums though
Unknown Soldier: We've mentioned the stronger tracks on the album, what would you say were the weaker efforts?
Anteater: 'Baby He's Your Man' and 'The Other End Of Time' are the album's two weakest tracks IMO
Anteater: I like the latter a lot, but its very formulaic and the former has some kind of loop sample thrown in there by Steve Porcaro of all people, but the song is a tad meandering.
Unknown Soldier: I thought the second track here was the ballad that you really liked?
Anteater: 'Just Can't Get To You' is pretty meh too.
Unknown Soldier: "Baby He's Your Man" is a poor song for sure.
Anteater: I like 'The Other End Of Time' as a ballad, but its definitely a weak track.
Unknown Soldier: Ok understand
Anteater: I'd say Tambu is about 70% pretty interesting material and 30% weak to average. It has more variety and energy and even overall nuance than Kingdom Of Desire but it also doesn't have a song on it that just absolutely kicks you over the hill like KOD's title track or Jake To The Bone
Unknown Soldier: I find "Just Can't Get to You" to be weak or better said boring.
Unknown Soldier: Tambu to me feels like a chill out album and when that kind of album arrives I'm often critical of it, as it has to be really good imo.
Anteater: All this being said, 'Drag Him To The Roof' is a surprisingly good and intricate jazz-fusion rock kicker, and 'The Road Goes On' is a pretty closer.
Anteater: But yes, Tambu is a bit of a chill out album, which in all honesty makes it a nice contrast from the previous album
Unknown Soldier: "Dave's Gone Skiing" is the instrumental here and kind of sounds like a Rush instrumental in places.
Anteater: Fantastic proggy instrumental there. This album also illustrates one of Toto's weirder traits as a band. See, even past the AOR part of their career you'd still get sappy ballads and such but then they throw out something like Dave's Gone Skiing and suddenly you remember again that these guys have been playing professionally for decades and they can give the classic prog bands a run for their money on occasion. It's a dichotomy you don't really get with any other band.


Unknown Soldier: Imo it's a pity that more of the songs didn't sound like it.
Anteater: You've got a good point there. But I still definitely recommend anyone exploring the band to give Tambu some time. It has some really good songs and ideas.
Unknown Soldier: Which leads me to the opinion that Tambu is kind of a cop-out album, as the label would've been shocked had they turned up with a Hydra part.2 album.
Anteater: I think Toto realized they needed to start tinkering with the formula again by the time Tambu actually got finished becauase the final part of the 90's album "trilogy" is by far the strangest one.
Unknown Soldier: So if you were recommending this album to the listener what would you say were its strong points and why they should actually listen to it?
Anteater: Eight out of the thirteen tracks are all instantly cherry pickable, which includes Time Is The Enemy, I Will Remember, Drag Him To The Roof, Slipped Away and the others we liked
Anteater: I like Lukather's ballads, but they're a tad samey overall for the most part on Tambu and don't do much besides fill up running time on the whole.
Anteater: My edition of the album includes a mid tempo blues piece called Blackeye, which isn't bad either.
Unknown Soldier: For me about 40 mins too long, again Steve.L sings on everything which like KoD stops it giving any real vocal variety and for me it's a chill out album that fails to hit the mark.,
Unknown Soldier: Yes "Blackeye" is with the backing/duet vocalist singing as lead.
Anteater: I consider 90's Toto to be the band in "Lukather really loves blues rock" mode with some stylistic variety from track-to-track depending on which record your listening to
Anteater: KoD is the really heavy one, Tambu is the chilled out one, and the upcoming 1999 release Mindfields is the one with the most variety and moods.
Anteater: But we'll save that review for next time of course
Unknown Soldier: Well as I first said at the beginning of these reviews, Lukather more or less took over the band leaderhip through and though by the time of Isolation and was calling all the shots, by the 1990s he indulged a bit too much imo and went from one extreme to the other with KoD and Tambu.
Unknown Soldier: For example anybody just knowing the band based on those two albums, would find little continuity and would unlikely like both albums.
Anteater: The biggest thing I miss about Toto during this period, like you mentioned, is how all the various members used to trade up on lead vocals
Anteater: This practice started to disappear by the time Joseph Williams came in full time, but he was such a versatile singer that it didn't matter as much.
Unknown Soldier: I really don't know why David Paich just stopped singing, he was kind of like equal to Steve Lukather in the early days on the amount of songs they both did behind Bobby Kimball.
Anteater: I don't think we'll ever known why Paich stopped doing lead stuff as much, but it was definitely a detriment
Unknown Soldier: As always when I heard that Tambu was the new album, I was praying that Fergie would be back. I think by the time the band got to the 00's I knew it was never going to happen!
Anteater: Yep! But somebody else does return for the next album....

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Anteater

The Lowdown
As the band's 20th anniversary came and went, Toto hunkered back down in the wake of Tambu and decided to record something ambitious. And they had every reason to try: founding singer Bobby Kimball had cleaned up and was back in the game, and ended up contributing quite a bit from both a performance and songwriting position to the album that would become 1999's Mindfields. Clocking at nearly 80 minutes, it is Toto's longest studio outing and one of their most diverse as well, with a variety of 3rd party songwriting credits and unusual ideas strewn about that gives the album an unusual feel within their body of work.

Commercially, the record did well everywhere except the U.S. upon release in November of that year. The band did a big tour to support it and came back feeling rather optimistic. This marked the beginning of Toto's last and latest musical period as the twenty first century approached, and still the band survived and soldiered onward....

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