BAD RADIATOR – BR6 TOTO Tribute (2023)

Swedes BAD RADIATOR are  favorites, with their five albums featured at the website. There is something special about their mix of rock, pop, melodic rock and AOR crafted with pristine production that makes them unique – very ’80s in essence, yet current.

Well, Bad Radiator are confirming their timeless ’80s credentials with the latest album released past year and featured here in exclusive: “BR6 / TOTO Tribute“. Yeah, they have recorded their own version of 10 TOTO classics. You gotta be confident as musician – covering TOTO is a true challenge.
The guys have chosen 10 songs from the wide Lukather & Co. catalogue of songs, and they’ve done a good job not only with the selection, but with the performances. Stylewise it covers most styles we’ve seen by Toto through the years, with the exception of their fusion manners.

And why not deliver the most popular songs right away? The first three songs are: ”Rosanna”, ”Hold The Line” and ”Africa”! The band stays very true to the original versions which is a clever move: TOTO is a band with such rich arrangements and fantastic twists that if you do a faithful cover, still find room to add your own imprint. And that’s what Bad Radiator did.
”Africa” is one of the best performances I’ve heard by this band. It takes a while to get used to a different voice for TOTO songs, of course. Mikael Lundgren is a really good vocalist, although with a lower register / range than your average Toto vocalist – but it really works.

One of my all-time favourite songs by TOTO is ”Endless”, which is included here as track 4. It is a very hard song to cover, to capture that ‘smoothness’. The whole band manages to capture a lot of the Toto mood into the sound. This is not something you can deliver ’just like that’! I mean, with Jeff Porcaro’s drums as the role model for one example, you can’t be too far behind in playing quality. It will show, but on this album it feels solid and right.

Before going back to specific songs again, we may also say the guitar solos by Klas Bergvall are mainly re-arranged, but done with a tasteful touch. No need to try and copy Steve Lukather, but instead find a path of your own.
Then the guys steps into the ’next generation of Toto’. First we get ”Don’t Chain My Heart” and then ”I Will Remember”, the former from the Kingdom Of Desire album and the latter from the Tambu album. And man, these two songs are done in a great way.
Another song they do really well is ”Georgy Porgy” which ain’t an easy one to cover, either. They’ve really captured the flow and the swing for the most part. Same goes for ”These Chains” by the way.

You must not forget that Bad Radiator is mainly defined as a melodic hard rock band, even though found on the softer side of the genre, with AOR hints. Still, this is quite some steps from the Westcoast / FM Soft Rock tinged side of Toto. These ballads they cover may sound quite ’easy’ but Steve Lukather, David Paich & company are masters of creating songs that sound simple but are built around incredible arrangements giving the songs that extra quality.
Bad Radiator does some of these ballads too: ”Without Your Love”, ”These Chains” and ”I Won’t Hold You Back”.

While Bad Radiator remain faithful to the original here, there’s something we like a lot: they do the covers without pretension. I mean, perhaps some of you feel these recordings are ‘too much home-made’, as production is clear and pristine yet not ‘huge’. I think Bad Radiator wanted things this way, just perform the songs they love without excessive studio trickery – from their hearts.
Highly Recommended

 

1 – Rosanna
2 – Hold the Line
3 – Africa
4 – Endless
5 – Don’t Chain My Heart
6 – I Will Remember
7 – Georgy Porgy
8 – Without Your Love
9 – These Chains
10 – I Won’t Hold You Back

Mikael Lundgren (vocals, keyboards)
Klas Bergvall (guitar)
Roger Hansson (drums)
Jan Persson (bass)

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