Could it be possible that the inspiration in the
Toto household is at an alltime low ? Fact is “Through the looking glass”
is the band’s first offering for their new record company EMI yet instead of
delivering some brandnew material they have opted to unleash no less than
eleven cover songs on the unsuspecting public. Certainly the word ‘cover’
seems to be a magic word nowadays especially what the charts are concerned but
in the case of the multi-talented members of Toto this was not what I had
expected. So
what have our boys chosen to tackle ? Well, they’ve gone for not strictly
the obvious by going for songs they can add their own virtuosity to. Because
every album needs a good single they have chosen a superb dance favourite in
the form of Bob Marley’s ‘Could you be loved’ which together with some
deejay’in by Tippa Irie and the swinging rhythm section immediately invites
you to boogie and also confirms the worldclass these musicians have as session
musicians. Having to chose eleven songs out of many thousands no doubt it was
a painstaking experience for all the bandmembers who celebrate 25 years of
Toto with this release. Being studio freaks of course their own tribute to
Steely Dan had to be included. Toto’s version of ‘Bodhisattva’ really
swings including a funky, jazzy, be-bop guitarsolo from Lukather. The
craftmanship of Toto really shines when they try their hand at a George
Harrison classic. The beauty of their version of ‘While my guitar gently
weeps’ can be seen as a tribute to the late Beatle. The sparse keyboard
interventions from David Paich together with the loops from Simon Philips and
the smoking guitar from Steve Lukather lift this version to a higher
dimension, to the kind of song which could be chosen as a single if ever they
need to lift another song of the album. No
doubt the soul classic ‘I can’t get next to you’ could have smoked even
more should Toto have collaborated with the Memphis horns and/or if a really
swirling Hammond organ would have been given the lead. Instead this piece of
soul/funk remains simply good without becoming brilliant. In their selection
of influential songs Toto hasn’t gone for the commercial feel, for the kind
of material everyone is waiting for. One of their heroes they went for is
Herbie Hancock. No doubt the instrumental ‘Maiden voyage – Butterfly’
contains a mean bit of jazz which allows David Paich to unleash his piano
tricks onto us accompanied by some tasty brass before evolving in kind of a
Santana direction. The Elton John and Bernie Taupin penned ‘Burn down the
mission’ really gets the power treatment but for me it’s the band’s
rendition of ‘Sunshine of your love’ which stands out a mile and takes the
song even further than the Cream original. The organ really puts life into the
traditional ‘House of the rising sun’ with Bobby Kimball shining
throughout. Bobby can put his microphone to one side as vocal duties during
the Costello classic ‘Watching the detectives’ are taken care of by Steve
Lukather. Still ingenious to hear how Costello managed to fuse new wave and
reggae into a song which is acceptable for all musiclovers. The album closes
with my least favourite of the bunch being the Bob Dylan composition ‘It
takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry’ sung here not so brilliantly
by David Paich but salvaged by the blues guitar from Lukather. “Through
the looking glass” sheds a different light on some of the world’s best
session musicians who have been gathered as Toto for no less than 25 years
now. As a first release for their new recordcompany I would have expected
something more original yet as it stands, and as the band has never done this
before, maybe we should just accept their little sidestep as long as they
promise to get us some new original Toto material soon. However with a world
tour which has just started I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with this
collection of covers for a long time to come. Reviewed by John 'Bobo' Bollenberg
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