Album: Santana

Continuing the format of the hugely successful Supernatural and the rather less so Shaman, All That I Am features high-profile collaborations cemented together with a handful of classic old-school Santana Latino-rock grooves. But, despite the return of former Arista boss Clive Davis as co-producer, it's a case of diminishing returns, Carlos and cohorts having gone to the well rather too often. Too many of the collaborations sound perfunctory and businesslike, with no obviously workable connection between, say, the pop-tastic vocal of Michelle Branch and Carlos Santana's lead guitar fills: rarely has a track been as ill-titled as their "I'm Feeling You". A similar shortfall in chemistry afflicts "Cry Baby Cry", which, linking Carlos with Sean Paul and Joss Stone, is the obvious heavy-hitter track, but it is fatally lacking in panache. Elsewhere, there's drab power balladry with Steven Tyler, a three-cornered guitar shoot-out with Metallica's Kirk Hammett and "sacred steel" exponent Robert Randolph, and more congruent collaborations with Will I Am, Anthony Hamilton and the pairing of Mary J Blige and Big Boi, though none is exceptional. Rather better are the generic Santana pieces, especially the opening "Hermes".

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Hermes', 'Twisted', 'I Am Somebody'

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