Living Colour - Shade

I have to something to confess: I haven't to anything Living Colour has put out more than half-heartedly since Collideoscope dropped in 2003, which itself was their first release since Stain put an end to a triple threat of excellent records 10 years prior. A couple of months ago I stumbled on their first EP released since before I was born entitled Who Shot Ya?, which was basically a cover of The Notorious B.I.G.'s titular track packaged with a couple of remixes by other artists. I saw that they had actually done a music video for the song and gave it a shot, curious to see how these guys had aged in the last decade and a half (the video itself is pretty good, if you haven't seen it yet and like hip hop or rock I recommend it). More than anything in the video itself I was blown away by Vernon Reid's guitar tone as I had never heard it sound so thick and chunky - he's always been an amazing player long suffering from a less-than-befitting tone which was never quite as full-throated as I would have liked, even at his heaviest. Who Shot Ya seemed to indicate a change to all that and when the full album Shade finally arrived after many years of delays, setbacks, and scheduling conflicts, I was very pleased to discover that his tone hasn't sounded this good in a long, long time. Truthfully his guitar and Doug Wimbish's bass both sound so huge I would've believed you if you had told me Brendan O'Brien had produced the album.

In reality Shade was produced and partially engineered and written by Andre Betts, a low-key industry vet with production and writing credits from the likes of Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, and Living Colour themselves. Credit where credit is due: Shade blasts out of the gate with all cylinders firing and basically never lets up until the last track is finished, which unfortunately don't quite end things on a super satisfying note despite a nice feature from Celebrity Jeopardy stary George Clinton. The pieces that work the best here are the ones most liberally soaked in the blues: the fantastic trombone and keyboard accent of "Who's That", the so-low-its-almost-crawling cover of Robert Johnson's "Preachin' Blues" and the straight-ahead blues rock of muscular opener "Freedom of Expression (F.O.X)", although that isn't to say the more hard rock oriented tracks disappoint. "Pattern in Time" sounds like a time capsule stretching back to the group's early 90's sound from their first two albums while unassuming foot tappers like "Invisible" and "Blak Out" are just plain groove machines. The thick, raw production really elevates the material here and erases any doubt that Living Colour might have lost their bite, even as they focus more heavily than ever before on topics of racism and inequality on the aforementioned "Who Shot Ya", "Program" (Why do I only ever hear black groups doing little skits like the one at the beginning of this song? It does a lot to humanize these bands) and a nice cover of Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" to round the whole package out. I mentioned the production before but I really have to stress again how rich of a an experience Shade is sonically. Doug Wimbish in particular sounds better than ever (think Rick Skatore on Strength In Numbers or Heavy Metal Soul By the Pound or dUg Pinnick on Dogman) while Corey Glover's pipes don't seem to have worsened with age an iota (his enthusiasm is infectious, especially on "Invisible", "Blak Out", and "Who's That"), and I've already noted how much fuller Vernon Reid's guitar tone is here. If it seems like I'm singling out stickman Bill Calhoun I'm really not, truthfully he's just been giving the same insanely tight performance for the last thirty years so it's hard to find much to say besides "he killed it again here". I find that the he isn't quite as in the pocket as he was on Stain but that was almost 25 years ago.

Shade certainly isn't subtle either musically or lyrically, but I don't think that's a bad thing in its case. As someone who has been listening to this band for a while it's a bit difficult to divorce myself from that experience and put myself in the shoes of someone who has never heard of Living Colour, much less the idea of an all black hard rock outfit. I like to think that Shade being released at this point in time with it's socially aware lyrics and Mike Brown liner artwork is less of a re-invention to the band's core audience and a wake-up to a larger music industry complex that found a place for Pharrell and Kanye but left this group, 24/7 Spyz, Follow For Now and others to fend for themselves in a post-grunge landscape. These groups have been a revelation to me in the last few years, and I can't even imagine the impact hearing a song like "Program" or "Preachin' Blues" would have on a black teenager in this era (if they dig it). More than just a collection of good tunes, Shade is a shoreline beacon for the next generation of disaffected youth of America that have grown tired of the current pop music scene.