Album: Santana

Shaman, Arista

It's unlikely that Shaman could ever repeat the mind-boggling success of Santana's 1999 comeback album Supernatural (25 million sales, and a record-breaking nine Grammy awards), despite the efforts by all concerned to replicate the hit formula of mutually rewarding collaborations with latterday chart artists. Since Supernatural's release, Clive Davis has been replaced as Arista chief by the former swingbeat producer LA Reid, a boardroom change mirrored here in the move from rock singers to mostly modern R&B collaborators. The resultant impression, on tracks such as the single "The Game of Love", is that Santana have been kidnapped and held hostage by the bland "urban" stylings of Michelle Branch, while a seemingly reluctant Macy Gray sounds all the more like Eartha Kitt among the frisky timbales of "Amoré (Sexo)". Seal's appearance on "You are My Kind" is a more sympathetic union of styles, his impassioned entreaties merging well with the humid Latin spirit, but elsewhere there's a clear disjunction of moods between Dido's understated vocal and Carlos's characteristically piercing guitar on "Feels Like Fire". "Novus", likewise, never really achieves a persuasive reconciliation between the band and Placido Domingo. Santana have fewer problems adapting to the nu-metal barrage of POD on "America", bringing a welcome cutting-edge to their bludgeoning bombast; but the best tracks here, significantly, are those like "Adouma", "Foo Foo" and "Aye Aye Aye", which feature the classic Santana Latino-rock mode of feverish percussion, simple chant vocals and elegantly stinging guitar fills. If it ain't broke, etc.