In 2003 the Belgian band Shah-Mat was founded. Members JP Devox (guitar), Steph Vondenhoff (lead vocals), Gaby Fratelli (drums), and Fax Lo Cascio (bass guitar), wanted to write music with a unique identity. Last month they released their debut album Upstream. I have to admit the album is indeed quite unique.

Shah-mat is a Persian word for Checkmate and I am quite impressed by Upstream, even though Shah-mat didn’t mate me totally.
The vocals of Stephanie especially are overwhelming; whether she sings mean, powerful, sweet or jazzy, the sound is absolutely great and full of emotions. What a voice and charisma this woman has. It is the male vocals, which are the weakest part of this album.
The album has only one solo on it. Not a guitar solo, but a saxophone solo. Normally the lack of solos makes an album somewhat boring after a while, because the songs all sound alike, but Upstream is different. The songs vary a lot; the female vocals are great and the guitar sounds sometimes heavy, then again spacey or jazzy.

Therefore you don’t miss the solos, this is a strong point of the album.
Most songs have rather dark and sad titles, like; ‘Sad Song’, ‘Hit My Soul’, ‘Creed’, and ‘Woman in Chains’. Stephanie’s emotional voice fits very well with the sad lyrics, but the male vocals on the songs don’t make them any better. No male vocals on ‘Sad Song’ and `Don’t You Forget’ especially would have been much better. The guitar play of Devox is great, it gives each song a sound of its own. The vocals and guitar play are rather unique.
The heavy parts have some Lacuna Coil influences. My favourite tracks are ‘Don’t Spite your hate on me’ (heavy), ‘Resurgence’ (psychedelic), ‘Creed’ (semi ballad), and ‘Shadow Puppet’ (Jazzy). Actually, all songs are great.

Upstream is an impressive debut album with a lot of varied songs. I definitely recommend this album. It takes a couple of times before the album hits you properly, but it’s absolutely worth buying Upstream. With better male voices the rating would be even higher.