REASON

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.

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.