Mind Control

Personnel: Erik Leonhardt, Hugo Ferreira (vocals); Joe Pessia, Joe Pessia (guitar); Marcus Ratzenboeck (violin).
Audio Mixer: Dan Malsch.
Recording information: Soundtime Studios, PA (03/09/2009-03/29/2009).
Having introduced the 2.0 version of Tantric on record with 2008's THE END BEGINS (with founding members and ex-Days of the New members Todd Whitener, Jesse Vest, and Matt Taul all having become ex-members of Tantric, too), lead singer Hugo Ferreira doesn't seem to have felt there was any reason to wait the usual three years before releasing another album, and so MIND CONTROL follows only 15 months later. (And really, in the music business environment of the 2000s, in which the sales life of an album is much abbreviated from previous decades, why not?) His backup musicians may have been replaced since 2007 (and the drum chair has now passed to a third man, Richie Monica, with Marcus Ratzenboeck joining on electric violin), but Ferreira still positions Tantric squarely in the post-grunge tradition of peers like System of a Down, Linkin Park, and, especially, Nickelback, placing his sonorous, husky baritone over tracks that sometimes border on heavy metal, but usually retain a melodic hard-rock flavor.