For some strange reason, people considered Living Colour’s third
\nalbum,
\nStain<\/i>, to be a “comeback” release. I don’t know exactly why.
\nCorey Glover and crew had maintained a solid presence on their
\nfirst two albums with songs like “Cult Of Personality,” “Glamour
\nBoys,” “Pride” and (even though I don’t like the song) “Elvis Is
\nDead”.<\/p>\n
But it was almost as if they were still considered a novelty –
\nand not because they were an all-black hard rock band. It almost
\nwas as if people expected a lot from these four guys, and they
\nalways seemed to come in just under the bar for many people. Or,
\nmaybe it was that some people had been disillusioned by the EP
\nBiscuits<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Whatever the case, Living Colour definitely was in a regrouping
\nphase on
\nStain<\/i>. Original bassist Muzz Skillings was gone, and in
\nstepped veteran Doug Wimbish. And while there are some great
\nmoments on this album, there also is its share of weaknesses that
\nare results of growing pains.<\/p>\n
If all you listened to on
\nStain<\/i> was the first side, you’d never know that a change
\nwould be in the works for the band. Vernon Reid’s guitar work,
\nwhile maybe not as lighting fast as before, was still as powerful
\nas it had ever been, and just as jazzy. William Calhoun’s trap work
\nstill stood out, as did Glover’s vocals. Wimbish’s bass lines
\nseemed to add a touch more funk to the band, with their more
\nmuffled thumps through the rest of the band’s sound.<\/p>\n
But the songs on the first part of
\nStain<\/i> are incredible. The opener “Go Away” is a fun number
\nto listen to, while “Leave It Alone” continues a solid streak of
\ngreat songs from Living Colour. “Mind Your Own Business” challenges
\nthe listener with the changes in speed and time signature, while
\n“Bi” is another slightly irreverent song that dares to approach the
\nsubject of bisexuality. The final cut on side one,
\n“Ausl\u00e4nder,” is a more industrial sounding song for the band,
\nand begins the changes for Living Colour.<\/p>\n
It is the second half of the album where things go awry. Two
\nshorter songs, “WTFF” and “Hemp” are throwaways that seem to serve
\nno purpose to the album, while the album’s closer “Wall” features
\nthe most changes for Living Colour, even featuring one part that
\nsounds like Glover’s vocal was sampled. It is a shake-up that was
\nhardly necessary for Living Colour. Two other songs, “Postman” and
\n“This Little Pig,” just don’t live up to the level of quality that
\nthe first side featured.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that the whole second side of
\nStain<\/i> is terrible. “Never Satisfied” is a decent enough
\ntrack, while “Nothingness” is possibly the prettiest song Living
\nColour has ever done. This being said, “Nothingness” is still a
\ndifferent style for Living Colour, featuring almost no guitar solo
\nand what sounds like strings, even though I see no credit for
\nstrings in the liner notes. (Possibly a guitar synthesizer?)<\/p>\n
\nStain<\/i> is a confusing album, even for the long-time Living
\nColour fans like myself. It has some moments of sheer brilliance,
\nbut it also starts screwing with a formula that didn’t need
\naltering. Unfortunately, not long after this album came out, Living
\nColour called it a day, so we’ll never know if these experiments
\nwere just a phase, or if they were planning on moving in this
\ndirection. (It’s also a shame because I would have liked to hear
\nmore of Wimbish’s bass work with the band.)<\/p>\n
Apparently
\nStain<\/i> is now out-of-print, but even for all the warts on
\nthis one, it is worth experiencing a few times. Just approach it
\nwith caution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5755],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-39271","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-living-colour","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39271"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39271"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}