SHAPE SHIFTER

It was a treat to hear the new Shape Shifter album by Santana, after the series of pop albums like Supernatural. The best phases of Santana were the early Abraxas phase, and the jazz fusion Caravanserai phase. The only Santana albums that really interested me after Borboletta were Amigos and Moonflower, some of Carlos' solo albums and the Santana Brothers album, which are in the jazz fusion vein. The Guitar Heaven album was simply pointless; Carlos is too good to be doing covers of other people's guitar hits (though Santana's previous adaptations of Black Magic Woman and She's Not There worked well).

So indeed, it's nice to hear a real Santana album again. And for those of us who are big fans of the Caravanserai phase of Santana, it's nice to hear Santana doing instrumental pieces. Clearly Shape Shifter is not the stellar album that Caravanserai is, but there's enough meat there to keep us interested, with a mix of hot numbers and cool ones, and one vocal number. If you're a big fan of Santana you'll like this album, and if you are fan of the earlier Santana but gave up on them years ago, you should give Shape Shifter a listen.