Shaman

Emerging from Brazil in 2000, Shaman specialized in power metal characterized by aggression, epic scope, and dramatic flair, shaped by pronounced classical influences alongside those of 1980s metal. The group originated after lifelong Rush devotee and drummer Ricardo Confessori departed the São Paulo metal band Angra. Vocalist Andre Matos and bassist Luis Mariutti soon joined him, with Luis’s brother Hugo Mariutti completing the lineup on guitar. Following an extensive European and Latin American tour that tested the new project, the musicians headed to Germany to record their first album under producer Sascha Paeth, already known to them from earlier Angra sessions. Issued in 2002, Ritual kept the band on the road worldwide for the subsequent eighteen months, where their intense live performances sustained the album’s momentum. A São Paulo concert from this period was captured in 2004 on both CD and DVD as Ritual Live. The 2005 follow-up Reason reunited them with Paeth and returned them to touring, though legal conflicts and name confusion with the Finnish metal band Shaman prompted a temporary switch to Shaaman. Upon returning home, further upheaval left Confessori as the sole remaining original member once the Mariutti brothers aligned with Henceforth and assisted Andre Matos in establishing a solo career. Vocalist Thiago Bianchi, guitarist Léo Mancini, and bassist Fernando Quesada then reconstituted Shaman—restoring the original spelling—and prepared the group’s third studio album.