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 AWESOME AND UNDERRATED Oct 01, 2009
I don't understand why alot of people had a problem with this record. It was Living Colour. It had all those Living Colour traits that we love with a little bit more to offer. They were very experimental on this album with synth's and drum machines and what not but it worked really well. L.C is always great at cover songs. The two on this record work really well. Flying is hand's down one of the best L.C songs ever that is as beautiful as it is haunting. So overall very underrated and to heck with all you haters. Living Colour made a solid record. Their first one in 10 years to boot and like always they gave you Living Colour by always playing what they want, how they want keeping a signature sound yet never once replicating it. Gotta love these guys.
 A dark but necessary record Oct 05, 2008
I LOVE the lyrics to "In Your Name" Brilliant.. Corey delivers the brainy, heavy duty, tongue-in-cheek commentary. Cool production too.
Oh yeah! Nov 17, 2007
Vernon Reid thankfully gives up on his solo noodlings and rejoins forces with the vehicle that give his talents such a good showcasing. LC were supposedly dead to the world yet here they reconvene and on this album things seem to have turned full circle for them. In the late 80's and early 90's it was their funkiness and apartness from so much of the hard rock world that gave them a fresh voice. However in 2003 it would seem that their concentration on song and - dare I say it - normality, that makes them stand out from the ruins of the nu-metal implosion and metalcore screamo bands. LC have changed by staying the same and in many respects this album doesn't sound like it's been years since their last one. All the usual LC stylings are there, an innate funkiness driven by the rhythm section with Reids slashing and diving guitar work laid over the top. Studio trickery is utilised particularly on Coreys' voice but the whole thing is very much anchored into the hard rock world due to the underlining heft of the songs structures.
Personal favourites on this album would be opener Song Without Sin, A ? Of When and the whimsical Flying. But that's not to denigrate the social commentary tunes which LC can still fire the listeners way with aplomb and a heck of a lot more street cred than your average hard rock band. Numbers like Nightmare City and Operation: Mind Control both work their heavy way along. And the cover of AC/DC's Back In Black was both a surprise and a fun choice for cover tune. Tomorrow Never Knows I could of lived without.
The dense sounding production reminds me more of Stained than their debut and as the album moves along it becomes clear that this isn't a five star release. It is a little overlong and does lack a certain X factor spark. It is however a good quality release from a quality band and it's certain that this is an album most of their former fans will enjoy as it sticks very much to what LC were initially known for, though it does understandably lack the youthful freshness of the more open and buoyant debut.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 It's no "Vivid..." May 09, 2007
Having been a longstanding fan of Living Colour that pulled his copy of "Vivid" out of a Hasting's shipping box, it would stand to reason that I would have snatched up "Collideoscope." However, several years passed, and doing an academic project on the band inspired me to finally purchase it. Retrospectively, I had no small amount of fear that the "comeback" CD from one of my personal favorite bands would not live up to my expectations, tinted as they were by the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. After being with this album for awhile, it seems that this apprehension was unfortunately somewhat justified.
"Collideoscope" is plagued by the nagging inconsistency of its material. This is an issue that Living Colour has dealt with on every album since the absolutely pristine "Vivid," but one that has always been tastefully dealt with within the album format. "Time's Up" and "Stain" both have some the weaker material, but these instances are carefully arranged to contrast the majority of stronger material, creating a strong overall project. For its length, I am not convinced that "Collideoscope" has enough strong material to keep it afloat. The inclusion of not one, but two cover songs begs the question as to whether or not some careful editing and a shorter running time might have improved the overall experience. In particular, the "Back in Black" cover (which borders on comic relief) would have been an interesting B-side or bonus track, but as a "feature" on Living Colour's "comeback" album it forces the listener to question the integrity of the overall project.
There are moments, however, that "Collideoscope" harkens back to the heights of Living Colour's creative legacy. Pay attention to the melancholic suicide note "Falling," which is perhaps not the "heaviest" tune on the album, but is certainly the most melodic and lyrically memorable. I also have to unequivocally state that the band is playing above and beyond their usual virtuosic standard. Vernon, Corey, Doug, and Will have all grown tremendously as musicians since "Stain." The command over their respective instruments and the way that they musically gel is staggering. They might be considered to be at the peak of their technical ability.
The Lowdown: "Collideoscope" is a sonic masterpiece: it sounds great. However, considering it was almost ten years in the making, the majority of the material on "Collideoscope" feels rushed and haphazard, with some compelling exceptions This does not mean that I think that Living Colour is "done," or "irrelevant," as a previous reviewer postulated. To realize this relevance, the band must take care to craft their next album with the same impassioned precision that bred their earlier work.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Very disappointing (2.5 stars) Dec 31, 2006
After a very long hiatus, Living Colour returned to the music scene in 2003 with their fourth studio album, Collideoscope. During their heyday, the band was a rarity in hard rock as their first two albums, Vivid and Time's Up respectively, were very strong statements both lyrically and musically. The band could add any genre to their brand of music and make it their own. Although their third album, Stain, was a less challenging release and was hampered by a muddy production, the great songs were still intact. During the next 10 years, both the musical climate and the state of the world had changed drastically. When the band released Collideoscope in 2003, longtime fans wondered how interesting the new album would be. Well, the good news was that their social awareness was still intact. The bad news was that the great songs were gone.
The album starts out strong as "Song Without Sin" and "A ? Of When" feature menacing riffs from Vernon Reid and strong vocals from Corey Glover. Unfortunately, the next track, "Operation Mind Control" is very sluggish. The band redeem themselves on "Flying", a graphic tune dealing with the 9/11 tragedy. From here, the album is a mess. While tracks like the rock/reggae of "Nightmare City", the bluesy "Holy Roller", and the funk/rock of "Great Expectation" are decent tunes that grow on you, other songs such as "In Your Name", "Choices Mash Up", "Pocket of Tears", and "Sacred Ground" are hurt by either too many sound effects, bad production, weak lyrics, or unmemorable melodies. Sadly, the rhythm section of Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun play it pretty safe, as though they were just rushed into the studio to do their parts, rather than leave their unique stamp on them. As for the cover tunes, their version of "Tomorrow Never Knows" is okay while Glover's vocals on "Back in Black" are painfully bad, like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. All told, Collideoscope is a disappointing album that rarely shows the greatness of their previous three albums.
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