MIND OVER BODY

After surprising the Prog Metal world with their very good debut in 2004, Mindflow return in 2006 to release a much more complex album that really pushes the boundaries of Prog Metal. This album takes a few listens as there is so much to digest, it is impossible to take it all in on just one listening.

The vocalist, Denilo Herbert, is probably one of the best singers in the genre. He has a natural sounding voice and is able to sing the slow tracks with a lot of emotion and passion. The next second he is singing from the top of his lungs and reaching the high notes without any strain. He also doesn´t imitate other vocalists which is a huge plus. Definitely a unique talent!

Rafeal Pensado uses great fills in his style of drumming and reminds me a bit of Mike Portnoy. The great thing with this band is that they are all fantastic musicians, excellent adventurous keyboards from Miguel Spada (Lots of great piano sounding keyboards too), great clean guitar tone from Hidalgo and a bass that is not lost in the mix but stands out and is a pleasure to listen to on headphones.

This album must be heard on headphones to really be able to appreciate the work that went into this recording. If you like progressive metal with lots of different time changes or music that pushes the boundaries, this album is for you.

A Masterpiece!

Dense, this is the word for this album. The music is heavy, intricated, complex, melodic sometimes and very, very creative. think of a Dream Theater without all those noodlings and instrumental display of individual skills: that´s Mindflow. Unlike many bands in this field Mindflow works for the music, with no ego battles and everybody doing it fo the overall result. Yes, they have their own style and they are very good on that. This is the kind of album you have to hear more than twice to really get their music. The production is absolute perfect and the band has surely some of the best muscians in the brazilian Prog metal scene (or the world for the matter).

My CD came in a digi pack case with a beautiful artwork and lavish booklet with pictures and words for the songs. It also came with a 14 page comic book that tells the story of the song Follow Your Instinct. And there is 79+ of music. All these for only 15 reais (about 7 amercian dolars!) on the store! What a bargain! I almost could not believe my luck.

Anyway, this is really prgressive! to get all the subleties and details you´ll have to listen to this record many times. It is a fantastic travel through complex music that is also very good and focused. it is quite demanding indeed, but you´ll be rewarded in the end. If you´re into prog metal you can´t miss this one.

I've just heard MINDFLOW's 2006 work Mind over Body and I have to say, I'm at the same time impressed and dissapointed.

I'm impressed (favorably) because the band is certailny a terrific, outstanding, amazing group of musicians. The vocals are nothing to write home about but the guitars and keys are just great. The level of playing that Hidalgo and Spada can achieve is demonstrated by the complicated textures, solos and the variety of styles that they go over in this release. No doubt the band is one of the great surprises in musicianship in the progressive-metal world. Even better to know that they come from Brazil, a land that has given us good power-prog-metal acts before (ANGRA), even though MINDFLOW is much more progressive in a typical way.

I'm impressed by the production values. Not only is the recording perfect and the sound of the disc something to really applaud; the band has also made an effort to provide its fans with one of the best booklet/cases, with beautiful artwork and even a whole song (and the album's concept) put into comic in a second booklet. The band takes the fans and its art seriously, and I really like that.

But there are some dissapointing elements to this album. And I find them where most people find this album's strengths: in the complexity of the music. I've given my opinion a million times: I love to hear technical displays of prowess and intricate structures, but not at the expense of coherence. I've hear Mind over Body more than a few times and I still think that it's very difficult to grasp any kind of structure in some of the songs. The musicians (very good nes, I say it again) lose themselves in change after change after change, never allowing a song to just, well, flow (pun intended).

Now, it can be said that some of prog's best moments have arrived thanks to challenges to the traditional structures and to completely difficult-to-get songs. I agree. But I can't sense any sense of symphonism here: this is not something like Close to The Edge; I also can't sense any multi-sectionism a la Supper's Ready or A Change of Seasons (metallic rhapsodism?). I can't even detect the broad, far-reaching maps of many post-metal songs; what is even more deciding, I can't find riff to riff structures like in DEATH. Just to focus in the genre, PAIN OF SALVATION (wihout a doubt the band MINDFLOW tries to emulate) has never failed to have a sense of coherence, structure, song-craftmanship. Yet MINDFLOW has. And that is what ultimately dissapointed me about them.

The music? Complex progressive-metal with touches of DREAM THEATER, QUEENSRYCHE, but mostly, PAIN OF SALVATION. At times the band sounds too much like Gildenlow's creature. But without the art of the song that the Swede masters possess.

All in all, a good, if flawed album, by a band that I'm sure can very easily deliver a 5-star album in the future, should they choose to let the music flow and save some of the complexity for future releases.

Recommended for: PAIN OF SALVATION fans, progressive-metal fans with a love for very progressive music...

... progressive doesn't always mean how many solos and sections a song can have, you know.

'Mind Over Body' - Mindflow (6/10)

Coming from a part of the world that is now becoming one of the hotspots for metal, Brazillian progressive metal group Mindflow is one of the more promising melodic metal bands I've heard in recent times. As my first introduction to this band's music, I had little to no idea of what I would find with Mindflow's second full-length studio album 'Mind Over Body', but after having digested it throughly, I am left torn by my opinions. On one hand, the band presents a very appetizing, proggy sound and stellar performance. However, the band's biggest problem lies in the fact that they sound far too much like the genre's existing giants to really take a unique shape of their own.

Going well-past the hourlong mark and featuring many tracks with lengths passing ten minutes, there's no denying that Mindflow are seasoned composers and performers. Led onwards by the strong, trained tenor voice of Benilo Herbert (a voice who sounds close in comparison to fellow Brazillian Edu Falaschi of Angra) the album makes it's label of prog metal well founded from the first moment on. With the opening mini-epic 'Crossing Enemy's Line', Mindflow unfold 'Mind Over Body's greatest track and strength from the beginning, instantly giving a powerful, if derivative journey that while at times quite effective and beautiful, does seem to cycle through sounding like a couple of Mindflow's more obvious influences.

This is where 'Mind Over Body's greatest weakness lies. While the band proves themselves to be highly proficient and skilled, they come across sounding like a bastard child of progressive metal's two greatest acts. While the proggier and heavier instrumental moments could easily be compared with anything Dream Theater has done, Mindflow seems to be a band that also shelters underneath the umbrella of Pain of Salvation as well. Many of Benilo Herbert's vocal stylings seem to suggest he has used Daniel Gildenlow as a vocal model with which to develop under. While the band does work well underneath the shadow of these two giants, as do the majority of progressive metal acts, giving the band a bit of a rough foundation to begin with.

Another issue (albeit to a lesser extent) is that of the consistency in the musical quality. The album is marked throughout by recurring motifs and ideas to give a sort of latent cohesion to the work, but the moments of brilliance are interspersed with drawn out sections that really feel like they could have been cut down in length, in order to preserve some of the lost interest. While each track is bound to have moments that jump out and really amaze, the songs themselves generally feel quite scattered, despite having plenty of awesome musical ideas to use.

A masterpiece that certainly 'could have been', Mindflow really deserves a commendation for a brilliant technical performance and having some moments that easily rival those of Dream Theater or Pain of Salvation. However, the spectres of these two prog metal giants seems to loom over Mindflow's head, refusing to let the band really develop their own unique style and sound. Until then, the album remains a good piece of work, but something that truly has been done countless times before.

MINDFLOW are a Prog-Metal band out of Brazil and this is their sophomore release. I quite liked their debut but on this one they've created a dense and complex work that isn't nearly as melodic as their first album. So yeah 80 minutes of it makes it tough to digest. I've owned this for a couple of years but have kept putting off the review because I knew it would be a battle to break it down. Ambitious is an understatement I suppose when it comes to this detailed concept album.There's even two thick liner notes to wade through.

"Crossing Enemy's Line" has a great sounding intro then it gets heavier before a minute.Vocals 1 1/2 minutes in and they aren't normal. Not the most melodic music i've heard either. It does settle 9 minutes in with regular vocals then settles even more after 10 minutes with fragile vocals. It does pick back up before it ends. "Upload Spirit" opens with some intense music including the vocals. It's heavier after 3 minutes then it settles 5 minutes in with piano and intricate drumming before it kicks back in. "A Thousand Miles From You" features fragile vocals and piano to start then a beat joins in.

"Just Water,You Navigate" starts to pick up a minute in with vocals. It kicks in after 4 minutes and passionate vocals follow. "Chair Designer" hits the ground running and we get piano too.Vocals also join in then it settles back some as the tempo continues to shift. "A Gift To You" features soft vocals and piano. Some guest violin half way through. "Hellbitat" kicks in hard quickly. Spoken words as the heaviness continues before 6 minutes.Vocals are back then it settles after 7 minutes followed by piano then vocals.Violin too on this one. It kicks back in after 10 minutes. A calm ends it. "Follow Your Instinct" sounds great with that dark intensity. It does settle though before 1 1/2 minutes. Spoken words after 2 1/2 minutes then it kicks back in hard. Another calm after 9 minutes. It's heavy again after 11 minutes. I don't like when they shout out the words. "Hide And Seek" opens with piano and violin then it turns fuller quickly. A calm with vocals a minute in then it kicks back in.

This just isn't the style of Metal I enjoy. I can appreciate it certainly but it's not something I want to play.