Toto - Kingdom Of Desire (1992, Relativity)
But as sure as Atlantis sank into the sea / I'm sinking like a stone babe / That's how it's got to be...
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…