Artist : Shumaun

Album : Memories & Intuition

Release Date : 10-09-2021

Added : 14-10-2021

'Shumaun' is a progressive hard-rock project initiated by Indian 'Farhad Hossain' who has already released two albums 'Shumaun' in 2015 and 'One Day Closer To Yesterday' in 2019 and who is also the singer, keyboardist and guitarist of the band 'Iris Divine' which also has two albums to its credit. It is thus with this new opus 'Memories & Intuition' that I discover 'Shumaun' and, after a first listening, I had an irresistible desire to come back to it because it contains all the ingredients that make it a very good progressive album with a nice variety of styles between the different compositions.

From the start, with 'A Subtle Invocation', it kicks off in energetic progressive metal with a punchy rhythm section from drummer 'Marc Zonder' who participates in multiple projects like 'Pentesilea Road' or 'Enzo and the Glory Ensemble'. Incidentally, 'Farhad Hossain' has called on some renowned drummers as the album also features Austrian 'Thomas Lang' (among others 'Peter Gabriel'), 'Leo Margarit' ('Pain Of Salvation') and 'Atma Anur' who officiate in different styles of music. The next track 'Prisoners' moves away from metal and shows a more measured atmosphere and a slower tempo with a catchy melody, then, 'Memories of Water' continues in a more direct and still melodic rock style and 'Jabriel's Song' is a beautiful instrumental ballad in an atmospheric style in which 'Farhad Hossain' shows all his feeling on the guitar. Without transition, 'Invicible' comes in with a wonderful mix of traditional Indian music and modern progressive metal which makes it one of the highlights of the album and reminds me of the punchy style found in some of the tracks on 'Threshold', then, 'Under The Sun' continues into quieter progressive rock and, although in places the guitar riffs are more muscular, it comes close to bands like 'RPWL'. This is followed by 'The Pursuit Of Happiness' which is a more searching progressive instrumental with a driving rhythm section varying tempos over which 'Farhad Hossain's' guitar accompaniments are particularly imaginative, then a change of style with 'Tides' which takes us on a ballad in a 'BJH' style, taking us back to the 70's/80's and 'Intuition Underground' continues our journey into the seventies, this time with direct and effective hard-rock with some welcome variations in intensity and with a unifying refrain. Another highlight of the album, 'Breathing Light' is a long, more complex, multi-layered progressive development that juxtaposes different soundscapes and we move for example from atmospheric metal to much more muscular progressive sections, then the end of the album returns to quieter rock with first the beautiful ballad 'A Planetary Shift' and a new memorable powerful chorus and a more dispensable melancholic 'The Day We Said Goodbye', with the same musical phrase being repeated throughout the track.

In summary, 'Shumaun', under the leadership of 'Farhad Hossain', releases a very good album that mixes quite different styles ranging from a peaceful conventional rock to modern progressive metal sought after what destines 'Memories & Intuition' to an audience loving diversity because it juxtaposes compositions accessible at first listen and others requiring to linger to get all the richness...

Line Up / Musicians

Farhad Hossain (Vocal, Guitar, Keybords), Jose Mora (Bass), Tyler Kim (Guitar) + Guests : Atma Anur (Drums), Leo Margarit (Drums), Mark Zonder (Drums), Thomas Lang (Drums)