This CD must be exerting some mind control over me (see what I did there?), because after listening to it four or five times it's grown on me and I'm starting to get over my irritation over them retaining the Tantric name. Just to make sure everybody's up to speed, Tantric was originally formed by Jesse Vest, Todd Whitener, and Matt Taul after leaving/being booted from Days of the New after their debut album, and singer Hugo Ferreira. After two albums on Maverick, the band was shaken up by personnel changes and label issues. By 2007, everybody other than Ferreira had left, and he managed to recruit new musicians and record new material rather than releasing the songs the original lineup had recorded for their third CD. I suppose that's one positive effect of the new band members and of being on Silent Majority; although there were long gaps between 2001's Tantric, 2004's After We Go, and 2008's The End Begins, now there's been only a little over a year space before the release of Mind Control.Everybody caught up? Good.
It's still somewhat the case that the songs are a mix of what you might call old and new Tantric. Lead single, album opener, and title track "Mind Control" is straightforward rock, with a heavy main riff, bass and drum-driven verse, catchy harmonies for the chorus leadin, and a half-time chorus with a reasonably good hook. Really I'm not sure it's the one I would have chosen for a lead single, because there are other songs on the CD that I was singing along by the second or third chorus whereas this one still hasn't really grabbed me.
"Fall to the Ground" is a good blend of sounding right in the context of their newer material while having a verse riff that would have been right at home alongside songs on the debut. "Coming Undone" starts with a piano line leading into a System of a Down kind of sound before Hugo's vocals kick in. The vocals for the verse are still that old-school Tantric sound, but the chorus is weird where they kick into a shouted sound with macho posturing "come on and get some!" Still, once I got over the shock and moderately hokey posturing, it's really gotten lodged into my head. The energetic solo in the bridge doesn't hurt either.
"Desert Me" starts off making me want to launch into "Inside Your Head" from the debut and is another incredibly catchy song. "The Past Is Dead" is kind of Tantric does Black Crowes, with the signature guitar part very reminiscent of "She Talks to Angels." It's sure to draw out the lighters at concerts, and will probably be dedicated to many many boyfriends and girlfriends after nasty fights, but it's not my favorite.
"Kick Back" starts with a fairly generic intro but has a great sound in the verse and is another song with the older single note guitar lines. It's also another of the songs with the shouted vocals in the chorus. I'm actually not sure whether it's Hugo or somebody else--as an aside, thanks so much to the PR guy for springing for the CD-R with an insert you ran off on your $40 Dell printer. Anyway, this leads into "Intermezzo," which is effectively a 90 second pause while somebody shows off guitar tapping. The last 5 songs on the CD, "Run Out," "Walk Away," "What Are You Waiting For," "Let's Start," and "Guiding Me," all pretty much fit with the other songs. "What Are You Waiting For" almost starts off sounding like "The Joker." "Guiding Me" also has a System of a Down kind of sound, similar to "Aerials." That aside, it's another ballad with a guitar sound that would have fit perfectly in the band's previous incarnation.
The Tantric we all knew and loved around their first two CDs is not dead, it just underwent some serious plastic surgery and needed to find itself in its new body. I'd say that Mind control is still the band stretching out and seeing what works a bit--while Hugo's still in top form, I'd guess the rest of the musicians and Hugo's vision of the band are still working out how to sound how they want to sound without alienating the early fans. Since it's not fair to expect a band to sound the same, to not change at all, throughout its career, I would have liked to see what would happen as the band's sound progressed with Matt, Todd, and Jesse. With Mind Control, though, I can say that I'm also interested and excited to see how the band proceeds with its new lineup. As with The End Begins, I doubt that Mind Control will necessarily be the high point of the band's career, but it's definitely a step in the right direction with a handful of solid songs and nothing that really should have been trashed--except, perhaps, for "Intermezzo," which just doesn't really belong. Keep it up, guys--if you keep solidifying as the new unit and giving me a new release every year or so, I think pretty soon we'll have another 5-star Tantric CD. For now...
