Mindflow: With Bare Hands

Hailing from Brazil, it would be easy to think that Mindflow would follow one of two routes and be either a samba infused rock hybrid, or Sepultura clones. However rather than deliver the expected, this South American quartet serves up a rather slick progressive metal with post-rock concoction. Building from the base up, Mindflow released two well received self financed albums to the South American market, before enlisting respected producer Ben Grosse (Megadeth, Disturbed, Marilyn Manson, etc.) to up the sound quality on their third release Destructive Device. During the recording of album number four Mindflow began releasing their songs one by one on the net and after consideration, decided it was time to take the plunge into the global market by cherry picking the best songs from those net releases and Destructive Device, with the end results being With Bare Hands.

Drawing influences from John Bush era Anthrax, the likes of Disturbed and the heavier end of progressive metal, Mindflow have created a sound that should appeal to anyone with a penchant for those types of bands, as well as possibly reeling in fans of bands like Pagan's Mind. With a sound that is rich in melody and heavy on guitars, With Bare Hands is perfectly capable of caressing and crushing in equal measures and while there is undoubtedly enough going on here to satisfy the out and out metal-heads, there is also enough restraint shown to reel in those who need a little more refinement. Singer Danilo Herbert has a mixture of John Bush and ex-Lillian Axe frontman Ron Taylor, alluding to a voice with the ability to sing sweet lullabies, as well as bone splintering metal. What this allows guitarist Rodrigo Hidalgo, bassist Ricardo Winandy and drummer Rafael Pensado to do is flit between styles with ease and skill in the shape of the restrained melodic metal of "Breakthrough", which actually has hit potential and the more urgent and brutal metal styling of "Thrust Into This Game" or "Destructive Device". It is a trick they pull off with ease and it is easy to tell that Mindflow are a band who have spent a serious amount of time honing their skills, which also allows them to bring in the more progressive edge to their music. There really aren't many bands adding intricate time changes into such hard hitting music and while there is the odd nod to Dream Theater, it is more a passing acknowledgement than a fully fledged acquaintance.

Meaty and melodic, With Bare Hands is a hugely impressive release from a band who look set to leave an almighty mark on the metal scene.

Track Listing
1. Break Me Out
2. Reset The Future
3. Breakthrough
4. Walking Tall
5. With Bare Hands
6. Corrupted
7. Under An Alias
8. Shuffle Up And Deal
9. Lethal
10. Thrust Into This Game
11. The Ride
12. Destructive Device
13. Instinct
14. Fragile State Of Peace

Added: August 15th 2011
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Mind Flow
Hits: 2427
Language: english

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