Living Colour - Time's Up (1990)^{Release ID: 2040}

Coming off the back of revisiting the 1988 debut album "Vivid" from this New York outfit recently, I thought I might give the same privilege to Living Colour's sophomore album too. I picked up a dubbed cassette copy from someone at school at the time of release & remember quite liking it, mainly due to Vernon Reid's fusion-inspired lead guitar work which seriously shreds. It's certainly a more serious record than "Vivid" was. It's also a much more metal one too. I've always struggled to see why people like to label "Vivid" as a metal release to be honest. To my ears it was more of a hard/funk rock album but "Time's Up" is one of the rare records that I actually feel is worthy of the funk metal tag as I find most of the others to receive that tag either don't include the funk element consistently enough or aren't really metal. The musicianship is astoundingly good from all parties but, while there's undoubtedly some strong material here, I don't think there are any genuine classics included. The calypso single "Solace of You" doesn't do anything for me & neither do any of the short interludes, all of which could have been comfortably omitted. Overall, I'd suggest that it's a better record than "Vivid" & I still quite like it but I wouldn't say that it's essential.