This album is really where Juno Reactor decided to say goodbye to trance beats and hello to world music. While the previous album, Bible of Dreams, had hinted towards a more ethnic feel (chanting vocals, tribal instruments), Shango explores this genre to the fullest. While you can still hear the distinctive JR beats in the background, there isn't much dance appeal here anymore (exception being the track Insects which is particually bouncy). JR seems to be more interested in creating an epic world listening experience with this album forward.

This would've been a great record if they had chosen not to add the Nitrogen tracks. Seriously, they're brilliantly useless if one already owns the Nitrogen 12" and Part I is also for some reason totally messed up due to the fact that they've removed the intro ambience. Solaris is, in my opinion, the track that should have gone onto the record instead of the Nitrogen tracks.

This album is dark. In my opinion the darkest piece Juno Reactor have ever made. All the tracks have a feeling of immense doom, like Badimo or a hallucinogenic surrealism like Pistolero. Nitrogen 1 & 2 are an industrial/ambient duality, telling us of a dark and polluted future, and the final piece, Song For Ancestors, is spiced with maniacal laughter.
It's quite a good piece, like everything Juno Reactor have made - but I'd still like to call it their weakest one, judging by their standards. It's the transition between Bible Of Dreams and Labyrinth, a cocoon phase... not as innovative as the first or as accomplished as the second.

8.5 out of 10 I'd say.

Apart from the "western meets trance" track 'Pistolero' and the last two, which are ambient/chill out, this is Juno Reactor's darkest album to date.