Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for Living Colour - Stain (1993)
Presenting, in Living Colour, these funk metal forerunners from New York City! Living Colour has been shaping up the funk metal scene since their 1988 debut album Vivid that includes their Grammy-winning hit, political anthem "Cult of Personality". In the years that followed, even more exposure was inevitable thanks to their more popular tour-mates Guns N' Roses and The Rolling Stones, as well as participating in the Lollapalooza tour on its very first year, 1991.
So what's next? Well, bassist Muzz Skillings left the group before they could start recording their 3rd album Stain. His replacement Doug Wimbish has been known for working with popular musicians like Madonna and Mick Jagger. Bad Brains producer Ron Germain helped show the band's dark heavy side while suitable for the mainstream.
The antiliberal opening track "Go Away" is a crushing start to the album. "Ignorance is Bliss" continues the political pessimism. "Leave It Alone" is a more melodic highlight. Another cool mainstream song is "Bi". Despite not getting enough attention or longevity in their career, great songs like this should never be ignored. It's an interesting song detailing the ongoing dilemma of people's sexuality ("Everybody's messed up with their sexuality") and can motivate certain people to overcome that dilemma and be proud of themselves and their community, maybe even certain characters from children's shows that have expanded the LGBT boundaries. But it might also cause some massive debate about whether this is pro- or anti-LGBT. Quite a tough call. Let's move on...
"Mind Your Own Business" takes some influence from their aforementioned tour-mates, and is not really my business. Then "Auslander" explodes into one of my favorite songs here. "Never Satisfied" is satisfying but can't beat the greater highlights. Another one of them being "Nothingness", which is a ballad-ish funk rock track with ambient symphonic synths, but I can certainly understand how destined it was to be a hit. After that, "Postman" packs a killer punch as the lyrics describe a vicious murderer. Living Colour can certainly take a death metal lyrical concept and twist it up in their usual funk/alt-metal/rock.
The problems this album has that make me think "WT*!?" are exemplified in the weird experimental "WTFF" (the second F stands for "Factor"). Really messing things up is "This Little Pig". Then "Hemp" is a f***ing pointless interlude. Fortunately, "Wall" closes the album by showing you all how this funky sound should really be done. As much as I enjoy Revolution bands from the electronicore of Enter Shikari to the mathcore of The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, I'm up for a bit of funky alt-metal once in a while.
Stain is a decent funky album with a few standouts, a few mess-ups, and a few in-betweens. Despite its success, the album ceased printing for 20 years due to a lawsuit from the band The Stain, and Living Colour split up due to creative differences. It won't be until a decade after Stain's release when their next offering would occur....
Favorites: "Leave It Alone", "Bi", "Auslander", "Nothingness", "Postman", "Wall"