It's Quality Over Quantity When It Comes To Living Colour

When a legendary band like Living Colour release a new album, it's hard not to sit up and take notice. Virtually 30 years ago the band released their debut LP, Vivid, and have subsequently released only a further four full-length studio records (taking into account, of course, the hiatus the band took in the late '90s). It's definitely been quality over quantity for these titans of hard rock, funk, jazz, hip hop and experimental.

2017 will see the release of the band's sixth studio album, Shade, and iconic guitar player Vernon Reid is more than happy to talk about its direction. "This record is funny, because a lot of what inspired it was thinking about re-connecting hard rock and metal to blues," he explains, "but then we went with a hip hop producer, so it's an interesting split in terms of what we wanted to do. But it worked out really well, it's not a blues-rock record per se, there's a feeling underneath it all that really talks about that, and I'm really happy with the way it's turned out."

"Trump hadn't even started campaigning, but a lot of the things that we talk about on the record are really relevant."

Reid explains that, while much of the material was written prior to the current political situation in America really kicking in, many of the themes and vibes created by the new record are directly relatable to what's going on in the States right now. "We've been working on this record for a while, but a lot of the stuff that's going on right now, even if this record wasn't written about that, Trump hadn't even started campaigning, but a lot of the things that we talk about on the record are really relevant.

"For example, we have a song on there called Two Sides, it's all very atmospheric, and George Clinton makes an appearance on it, and in a lot of ways the song has something to say about how divided we are. There's 'two sides' to every story, we have this duality that's forced on us, left and right, black and white, male and female, all of that, and the lyrics speak of exactly where we are right now."

The band are heading Down Under in May for a tour that takes in all mainland state capitals, and Reid is very grateful to be getting away and getting some relief from what's happening in his home country at the moment. "It's always great to go down to Aus," he enthuses, "so many great cities, and it's just a wonderful vibe there. I've always enjoyed coming down. We always look forward to playing for the Australian people, and getting away from all that stuff for a while, we're excited about it."

And in an extra special treat for Aussie fans, the band will be playing some of the brand new tunes from Shade prior to its official release. "Yep, we definitely are," he states, "we're definitely playing some Shade, I'm really looking forward to getting some reaction to that from the Aussie fans."