Living Colour
Stain
(1993)
Genre: Funk
Metal, Alternative Metal (with thrash metal, Industrial metal and jazz
influences)
The first
time I listen to this album was back in the late 90’s, I was about 16 or 17
years old, I was recording my second demo with my band, my guitar player put
this album on while we were working on couple of ideas and we basically stopped
doing everything we were doing to listen to this alternative metal, master
piece (we also realized how much we sucked at playing our instruments). And to
our luck the band had just got together and played live here in Cordoba,
Argentina, which is pretty incredible because very few band come here in the
first place, now the concert was incredible they played for 2 hours but
something that struck me is that they didn’t play any song from this album, and
I got to see them two more times and they never play any of these tracks, it’s
like One Hot Minute from the Chili Peppers or Anti-Pop from Primus, albums that
represent a dark period for the band so they decide not to play these songs
once they end it’s respective promotional tour.
Vocals and Lyrics: Corey isn’t holding back on any of
his social political commentaries in his lyric, he can be a little politically incorrect
at moments like on “Bi”, but in general I like his style of protest more than
Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine. 10
Instrumentation:
Guitar: Vernon Reid is a Guitar god, nuff said.
Bass: Doug Wimbish is Living Color’s new bass player,
his slapping is incredible, he adds some interesting armaments and uses some
crazy effect on the bass like a whammy pedal that sound incredible.
Drums: Will Calhuan, bring a more aggressive element
to the table he actual pulls off a thrash inspired song, and I think he’s the one
responsible for the use of midi for the rhythmic samples that bring that
industrial element to the songs. 8.1
Melody and/or Structure: there composition
capabilities is much higher than most of the alternative bands, which are
characterized with really good musicians in general, but most of Living Color’s members have a strong
jazz and technical musical backgrounds (these guys have studied they craft),
something that they have in common with punk legends Bad Brains or with funk metal comrads Screaming Headless Torsos. 10
Sound, Production and Feeling: Ron Saint Germain has worked
with 311 and Bad Brains, and he’s the one responsible for the production of
this album, the guitars sound super heavy and the
band in general sound great. 10
Songs: Jaw dropping from start to finish 13
The Bad: Nothing
Originality: These guys push the limits of Alternative Metal/Funk Metal; too bad it takes them more than 10 years for a follow up album. 10
Overall: 61.1
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