Too Far Gone

There is no denying the immense talent of Viennese down step duo Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber, known collectively as Tosca. Since releasing their first single, “‘94s “Chocolate Elvis” – which later appeared on their debut LP, Opera, a landmark release that still sounds like a classic today – the pair have been steadily making melodically mild musical memories such as full length albums Suzuki, Dehli9 and J.A.C., each of which saw the band making slight tweaks to their style, though still staying within the boundaries of slow and melodic beats meant more for the living room than the dance floor. The pair may have set the bar a bit too high in the past, and on their most recent release Outta Here, they seem to be walking under it with plenty of room to spare.

With Outta Here the band has again invented a new genre, unfortunately that genre sounds steeped in ‘80s-era adult contemporary. A large part of this seems to come from addition of vocalists Cath Coffey (Stereo MCs) and Earl Zinger (Galliano), who provide at best, halfhearted lyrics, which they deliver with all the gusto of a drunken couple at a karaoke bar. Dorfmeister and Huber aren’t exempt from scrutiny here either. Musically, most of Outta Here sounds like the pre-programmed beats on a Casio keyboard set to uppity “World Music” style rhythms, whose styles have been recycled so many times that they come off sounding cliché.

Outta Here gets off to a bad start from the first track. “Harry Dean,” with its slow and creepy synths, and Coffey’s deeply slow and affecting vocals, could easily work as the background music for a love scene from a straight-to-video release. The next track, “Outta Here” employs slightly psychedelic synths that sound like they were sampled from the soundtrack of a Nintendo game, and lazy jungle style beats, laid over with Coffey’s repetitious falsetto ooh’s and ah’s and Zinger’s low and scratchy vocals. The childish feeling follows along to the next track “Crazy Love” which becomes annoying almost from the offset, due to Zinger trying his hand at scat lyricism, which lingers on much too long to tolerate. “Have Some Fun” is a retro disco throwback, with jangly guitars and mellow keyboard licks, though it comes off sounding like something found on a high school mix tape. The retro disco vibes reappear later on “My Sweet Monday” which rivals its predecessor for blandness. The rest of the album continues to spin and take turns strange and funky, though it also sounds sadly like a rehashing of the first half of the album.

In the advent of future releases, Tosca could learn a thing or two by listening to, well, early Tosca. The largest failure here is that they strayed from the slow and low haunting beats which made them Tosca. In artistry there is always the temptation to move in a new direction, which sometimes works out well, though on Outta Here, Tosca simply sounds lost, and in need of directions to get back home.