SHAPE SHIFTER is an apt title for the brand new Santana studio album, as the musical shape is different from what we normally expect.

The title track starts with something which appears to be influenced by the American Indians (and is reflected on the cover design), before shifting into a piece that wouldn’t seem out of place on a rock album – and in parts is reminiscent of Santana’s moonflower album of 1977.

As this is a mainly instrumental album, the musicians have more than enough opportunity to show off their prowess, not least Carlos Santana himself, whose guitar playing has never been better.

Almost every track has a section where he demonstrates his skill.

Early on, he sets his stall out – on Dom and Nomad, he is well to the fore. OK, this is how it’s meant to be, but he dominates the whole album completely.

Generally, such dominance by one instrument would tend to be a bit wearing, in this case it isn’t.

He plays electric and acoustic guitar with equal expertise and of course the use of different guitars leads to other shifts of shape in the music.

That is not to say that the guitar sound swamps everything completely; in many places, the keyboards seem to challenge him and in these exchanges the two instruments complement each other very well.

There are changes in tempo too. Angelica Faith is quite a bit slower than most of the other tracks and borders on smooth jazz; just the thing for late at night as it is quite beautiful.

This ‘smooth jazz’ feel permeates much of the album giving it a pretty laid-back vibe, and there is a run of this type of track before the tempo picks up again with Macumba in Budapest which is the first track on the album to sound even remotely Latin American.

Mr Szabo is an interesting track, again with a slightly Latin touch, but with the guitar sounding something like a cross between a bouzouki and a balalaika – but at just over six minutes is a tad overlong.

Of the 13 tracks, only the 11th – Erez La Luz – has vocals, and is probably the song that sounds more Mexican than any other; and is quite a jaunty track.

And then back to the late-night sounds for the last couple of tracks.

Overall, as you would expect, we are listening to a master-class in guitar playing as given by Carlos Santana, but such is his skill and the feeling he puts into it – we don’t mind one little bit.

Sony Music.

Release date: 14th May 2012.