REASON

"Reason" is a outrageous CD, carrying with him a new proposal, that combines a dark Heavy Metal with a great Hard Rock, all surrounded by a progressive 'aura' that Shaman has always had.

Songs like "Reason", "In The Night", "Rough Stone" and "Trial Of Tears" YOU WON'T FIND ANYWHERE... Shaman - and specially his singer and leader composer ANDRE MATOS - is well known for his daring, his search for new elements, his INOVATION... things not really appreciate nowadays... unfortunately, since Progressive Music LIVES FROM THAT!!!

SHAMAN has rediscovered Prog Metal twice: by making a NEW and very PERSONAL sound, and making it with simplicity! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Reason is the second release by Shaman and sadly also the last with Andre Matos as vocalist. Along with Mariutti brothers, Andre left the band and starts his own new band, Andre Matos. Reason is my favorite between the two Shaman's albums that I have, it's far from easy listening at the beginning and need your patience to grow on you. Don't expect to click with you at the first spin because it's more inaccessible and somewhat darker than its predecessor Ritual. Though this album has less Brazilian traditional music influence than Ritual, but for me, this album stirs my emotions deeper than its predecessor and musically it flows beautifully from one track to another.

Reason has no interlude or instrumentals composition to start the album but it has Turn Away, the powerful and energetic track. I really like the part when bass guitar playing dynamically after the first guitar solo to start the instrumentals section in the middle of the track. The second track is a beautiful ballad, Reason. A nice and tender piano starts this track and then gradually becomes faster. The spoken part by a female vocalist of this track is depressing and beautiful. The guitar solo and piano touch of Reason is beautiful. More is a cover track of the original one written by Sister Mary and musically it blends perfectly with other tracks of the album. I never heard the original one but this cover track by Shaman is beautiful with catchy keyboard work. Innocence is another beautiful ballad. I like so much the Indian Dioruba playing and the guitar solo in this track, beautiful! Scarred Forever is the next, it has great guitar and drums works at the beginning and highlighted by a solid orchestration. In the Night is one of my favorite tracks in this album with beautiful instrumentals section at the middle of the track and also beautiful guitar solo afterward. I really like the pounding drumming at the second verse of this track and the beautiful percussions by Ricardo near the end of the track. Rough Stone has a beautiful opening part. It started by bass line and drums then highlighted by beautiful sitar and violin before change into acoustic guitar and vocal part. The next track is Iron Soul, an energetic track with beautiful orchestration in the beginning and a nice piano touch in the instrumental section in the middle of the track. The piano touch is short, simple but beautiful and makes a great impact for me. It's just beautiful and I like it so much. Trail of Tears is another energetic track. It's a fast tempo song and has great guitar playing. Born to be is another my favorite tracks and one of the most emotional tracks by Shaman. It opened by beautiful yet depressing piano touch followed by heavy guitar riff, bass lines and drumming before it calm down again to let the vocal in. It also has a beautiful Indian Dioruba playing during the second vocal part after the first bridge. It ends with the same opening piano touch but a bit longer and backed up by whispering vocal and haunting sounds. Dark yet beautiful!

Once again, a solid album composed by Shaman. The only complain from me is the vocal parts by Andre Matos, he rare to use his high register note in this album unlike what he did with his vocal in Angra's albums or previous Shaman's album. maXmuri - Yogyakarta Indonesia

Generic and uninspired power metal

Back in the early 2000's Shaman was a pretty big metal band: they made shows all around and they were as big as other big brazillian metal bands, such as Angra and Sepultura. Back then I was very impressed by their debut, so when their second album came by I went to buy it right away. However, something was wrong. The band was all around, the music simply could not flow right and there was this ever present new metal feeling in their music which I just hated. I hated the album so much that I re-sold it, in hope to get some of my money back!

Some time ago, for some reason that is beyond my comprehension, I got interested in the album again, so I borrowed it from a friend that was a Shaman fan. After listening it for some months I must say that my impression haven't changed much: I still do not like this album and still find it kind of boring. This time, however, I could see that this album is not a total waste, because there are some songs that are actually quite good, which are Innocence, Scared Forever and Born to Be, being Innocence the best of them all. The thing is that the rest of the album is just so uninteresting, so lacking any kind of new ideas, that the quality of those songs is lost in the sea of cheese, and even the good songs are not that good at all, with the notable exception of the songs Innocence and Born to Be.

Here, you can really see that the cracks are starting to show themselves. The band can't work as well as it could when they composed Ritual and the result is just tragic: the progressive metal is gone and is substituted by this generic and uninspired power metal. It is no wonder that ALL founding members of Shaman left the band. If I can give any piece of advice to you who are reading this review, they would be the following: 1) buy this album only if you really like power metal and 2) if you want a really impressive and mind blowing piece of progressive metal, get Shaman's debut, entitled Ritual, which is one of the best progressive metal albums from this decade.

A coming home. That's how I feel it.

The second chapter on this brief journey of André Matos and Co. is a great produced and still fresh Prog Metal album with creative dynamics between symphonic phrases, some brazilian folk rythms and metal riffing. The result is very close to their debut album, musicians working for music and not the opposite. Prog Metal with sense and soul is how I call it.

There were two bands that literally convert me to prog: Dream Theater and Angra. After the disbanding of the latter, André Matos rejoined with other ex-Angra members and continue with his original songwriting and after a few years I found this album and I get very excited to see all the good things that I like from Andrés Era in Angra, all improved: better singing, touching and moving soft phrases and impressive Prog Metal development, never loosing sense or direction.

Shame this was the last production of Matos in Shaaman, who again changed line up and became a mediocre average Power Metal band. But at least we have this wonderful album. A short production (less than 50 minutes of music) of all good songs, great for new fans or people that do not know well Prog Metal.

If you want to feel good by hearing music with sense and with good amount of strength and meaning, Reason is the album you should hear. Shame that too many people is aware of this project. Easily one of my favorites bands in the Prog Metal sub-genre. 4 stars. Great addition to any prog collection.