1. Tantric (2001)
2. After We Go (2004)
3. The End Begins (2008)
4. Mind Control (2009)
Tantric
Released February 13, 2001, Length 47:29, Label Maverick Records
1.Breakdown 3:10
2.Live Your Life (Down) 4:30
3.I Don't Care 3:41
4.Paranoid 3:37
5.Revillusion 3:30
6.Mourning 4:20
7.Astounded 4:21
8.I'll Stay Here 4:11
9.Frequency 4:00
10.All to Myself 3:45
11.Hate Me 3:21
12.Inside Your Head 5:03
Background and recording
In November 1998, after a turbulent relationship on the road, Todd Whitener, Jesse Vest, and Matt Taul were released from their duties in Days of the New. The day they were fired, the three were cutting instrumental demos for what would become songs on Tantric. However, in the meantime, Whitener, Vest, and Taul would have to survive through low-wage jobs.
In March 1999, singer Hugo Ferreira moved to Nashville, and within their first practice session together the group began developing songs. Within six months, the band had written a plethora of material and, thanks to local friends in radio, quickly gained a strong fan base in their native Louisville, Kentucky. After the band's demo caught the attention of Maverick Records late the following year, they were signed and began recording their self-titled album with producer Toby Wright.
The album as a whole emphasizes acoustic guitar and harmonized vocal melody which is, to some degree, reminiscent of Days of the New. This style was also heavily influenced by Wright, who is known for applying multi-track vocals to much of his work.
The band toured extensively to promote their debut album, including a headlining tour in early and fall 2001. From April to August that year, they supported 3 Doors Down with Lifehouse, and in May took part in the first two-day HFStival. After being scheduled to play at the Atlanta Music Midtown Festival, where Tantric was also scheduled, Days of the New canceled at the last minute on May 5. Although not proven, it was widely speculated to be a result of Tantric's involvement in the event. On May 11, Tantric performed "Breakdown" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
The Kentucky group joined Oleander and Beautiful Creatures on the Rolling Rock Town Fair tour from September through November. They also appeared on HBO's Reverb in late 2001. They would perform on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on December 28.
Tantric was chosen to join Creed for the first two months of 2002. They then embarked on a headlining effort in the Rellim Tour, sponsored by Miller Beer, in spring 2002. Afterward, Tantric would reenter the studio to record their second album.
Music videos were produced for all three singles from Tantric and fared well on MTV2. "Breakdown" and "Astounded," which was led by famed director Nigel Dick, feature a more abrasive, confrontational rock sound while "Mourning" takes on a power ballad approach. The latter was featured in the end credits of the 2002 neo-noir film The Salton Sea while "Breakdown" was in advertising and the soundtrack to Driven.
After We Go
Released February 24, 2004, Length 48:30, Label Maverick Records
1.Chasing After 3:31
2.After We Go 4:21
3.Falling Away 4:23
4.Hey Now 3:28
5.Hero 4:25
6.The Chain" 4:21
7.Change The World 3:27
8.Just Once 4:56
9.Relentless 3:11
10.Alright 4:22
11.Before 4:27
12.Awake 3:32
After We Go is the second studio album by Louisville post-grunge band Tantric. Released on February 24, 2004, it debuted at #56 on the Billboard Album Charts but quickly lost momentum due to the lack of a strong single. Despite the lack of radio success, the album is considered a success by singer Hugo Ferreira because it fared extremely well through the medium of downloading. After We Go would be Tantric's final album for Maverick.
Background and recording
After wrapping up a headlining tour on April 7, 2002, the band went to Ocean Way studios in Nashville, Tennessee to record their second album with producer Toby Wright. The band expected to release the new work, originally to be titled Zero Point Mantra, by year's end.
After two long sessions, however, the label insisted Tantric to return to the studio and continue. The third session churned out three more songs including the singles "Hey Now" and "The Chain". Singer Hugo Ferreira noted of the experience, "This record was a long and painful process to make. We were under a lot of pressure from our label to spit something out." The band contemplated recording a cover and simply chose the first song they heard on classic rock radio, "The Chain". At this point, the tentative release date was set at February 10, 2004.
Ferreira wrote the lead single, "Hey Now", with ex-Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt. The two both grew up inHudson, Massachusetts, and their moms were friends, so Ferreira would spend time with Bettencourt's nephews and play his guitars. They eventually met up in Los Angeles where Ferreira asked Bettencourt to write with him. Their demo was then brought back to the rest of Tantric.
Music and lyrics
On After We Go, the second Tantric production by Toby Wright, the band continued their rather distinctive method of blending well-layered melodic vocals over distorted guitars. This often leads to comparisons with Seattle group, Alice in Chains, whom Wright had famously worked with. The album is slightly heavier as a whole, with the opener "Chasing After" setting the stage for the whole album. Guitarist Todd Whitener provides more vocals than on the previous album, including the lead in the chorus of the title track, "After We Go".Ferreira described Tantric's second album as "more mature" and "definitely heavier." He described current issues such as the invasion of Iraq and a struggling economy as helping "give this record its own soul." Corresponding with the album's aggressive theme, the lead single was described by Ferreira as "kind of a 'You did me wrong, so f--- you' song."
A music video was produced for the single "Hey Now", which predated the album's release. The follow-up singles, the title track and a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", also met with poor reception. Nevertheless, Tantric soldiered on, touring with 3 Doors Down and Shinedown for much of 2004.
Tantric's cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" became the theme song for HBO's Family Bonds. The opening track, "Chasing After", was also featured in the video games WWE Day of Reckoning and WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw in fall 2004.
The End Begins
Released April 29, 2008, Length 44:30, Label Silent Majority Group
1.Regret 4:13
2.Down and Out 3:39
3.The One 4:08
4.Love Song 4:03
5.Wishing 4:50
6.Something Better 4:01
7.Lucky One 3:28
8.The End Begins 4:11
9.Monopoly 3:51
10.Why Don't You 3:42
11.Lay 4:19
The End Begins is the third studio album from Louisville, KY-based band Tantric. It is the first one recorded without the band's original members Todd Whitener, Matt Taul, and Jesse Vest. Vocalist Hugo Ferreira, the only remaining original member, was forced to scrap the original line-up's complete third album in favor of The End Begins, an effort established by new members of the band in addition to Ferreira. This is the only album to feature ex-Fuel drummer Kevin Miller.
On January 13, 2009, The End Begins was re-released as a "Digital Deluxe" edition. This includes the bonus tracks"Down & Out" (Acoustic) and "Fall Down." As of May 2009, the album has sold well over 70,000 copies.
Tantric III
Armed with Elliott Blakey in the producer's chair, work commenced on the follow-up to After We Go in February 2005. The band finished over a dozen songs for the album, which at the time had the Led Zeppelin-esque title, Tantric III.Samples were released in May 2007 of the songs "Fall Down" (which included a guest verse from Nappy Roots member Skinny DeVille), "The One," and "Letting Go." However, many internal problems plagued the band over the course of this time, including the departure of bassist Jesse Vest (Whitener recorded all of the bass on the album), sales of After We Go hurt by downloading, and the band's release from Maverick Records, the latter of which has shelved this album indefinitely.Finally, the original line-up collapsed in May 2007 with Whitener and Taul announcing their departure through TantricOnline.com, the band's former online message board. Ferreira has claimed that his fellow band members' departures were a result of frustrations with the record label and music industry in general. The album has been described by Blakey as the band's most aggressive, yet still possessing "beautiful pop moments." Continuing the band's traditional method, harmonized vocals and distorded guitars are featured heavily on this album, and Whitener, vocally, is featured equally with Ferreira and sheds the "backup singer" moniker. The vocal attack on T3 was truly a tandem effort. The production value is also extremely different from any of the bands previous works. Whereas Tantric and After We Go had very full, deep, Toby Wright influences, Tantric 3 has more of an aggressive, Low-Fi sound, that does not accent the band's ambience, so heavily featured on the previous two records.
On Ferreira's birthday of 2006, Tantric parted ways with Maverick and soon after saw the original members depart. Hugo Ferreira has shown mixed feelings toward releasing Tantric III; in 2009, he expressed interest but noted the high cost of purchasing the songs from Maverick. "If it's in the cards, it will happen someday, but more like 'the lost tapes'," he commented. Herreira also commented on his hopes to have leaked it to the fans as a potential Christmas 2008 gift for their support.
Mind Control
Released August 4, 2009, Length 35:32, Label Silent Majority Group
1.Mind Control 3:01
2.Fall To The Ground 3:20
3.Coming Undone 2:56
4.Desert Me 2:47
5.The Past Is The Past 3:24
6.Kick Back 3:06
7.Intermezzo 1:26
8.Run Out 2:59
9.Walk Away 2:57
10.What Are You Waiting For 3:20
11.Let's Start 3:03
12.Guiding Me 3:06
Background and recording
On March 9, 2009 via MySpace, Tantric announced that they were recording a new album entitled Mind Control. The band's fourth album would be produced by Brett Hestla, former touring bassist for Creed, and initially given a July 21 release date.
Singer Hugo Ferreira noted that Mind Control was more collaborative than previous releases and called it "really, really heavy for Tantric, twice as heavy as the last record at least." However, as all Tantric band members live in different cities across the United States, Mind Control was written piecemeal. The band would send each other compositions via email for others to build on. In an interview with The Flint Journal, Hugo Ferreira discussed the album's production:
- "It was all like via e-mail. Basically Joe would send me a guitar riff on the e-mail and I would dump it into my home studio and kind of slice it up and put it together, and maybe add a chorus. It was put together like a puzzle. But with the instrumentation, I think that the guys, in my mind, really stepped up to the plate and gave me a lot of great stuff to work with. I never really wrote a record like this. But, to me, I think it's the best one we've ever done. It was crazy because it was really effortless. It's great."
Ferreira also elaborated on performing for the US military in Korea and the meaning behind Mind Control and its title track:
- "This record is a lot darker than anything we have ever done. Basically, I wrote the song about the media kind of controlling people's opinions and thoughts and stuff like that. Just from being on the side of the viewer of me watching television and seeing the news and flying out to Korea and talking with troops out there and getting their take on it and being completely different. That's what the song was about. The song, even musically, and with the video we already shot, it sets up the whole tone of the record. I thought it would be a cool name."
Within a few months of sharing and developing songs separately, the bandmates had written nearly thirty songs. They finally reconvened for one week in a secluded studio in Poconos to perform the songs together and refine them. Bassist Erik Leonhardt explained how the album developed further with the band together:
- "We had written the whole record over the computer, so a lot of it changed once we got into the studio. When you have everyone in the same room the ideas start changing. ‘What if we do this? What if we do that?’ We definitely went heavier on this record, too. I think it has a lot to do with having all new members. This is the new band, full on and writing together. We never said ‘let’s write a heavier record,’ this is just what happened."
With Mind Control having been released merely a year after Tantric's prior album, Ferreira justified the hastiness by explaining "We had the material written. We didn't want to be off the radar. We were off the radar from 2004-2008 and we didn't want people to have to wait for us. It's already not a very loyal business, so if you're not constantly at it you can be easily forgotten."
Touring and promotion
The album's title track served as its lead single, being introduced to radio in August. After two weeks, it entered the Top 40 on the Mediabase Active Rock chart. The music video for "Mind Control" was shot in Nashville with director Mason Dixon, who previously directed "Down and Out." It debuted nationwide via MTV2’s Unleashed on August 4.Tantric's first tour for Mind Control was scheduled from August to September 2009 with guests Aranda and Vayden.
Critical reception
Mind Control gained largely positive feedback from critics. Michael Mueller of Guitar Edge gave the album 3.5 out of 5 stars. Praising guitarist Joe Pessia's acoustic performances on "The Past is the Past" and "What are You Waiting for," he declared that one of the two "is almost certain to be a radio smash." Mueller also considered the song "Let's Start" "Rob Zombie meets Alice in Chains with an E-Bow. However, there is no E-BOW used on the album. Tantric has an actual violin player in the band. "Critical reception
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