Living Colour in Black

Band: Living Colour.

Personnel: Corey Glover, vocals; Vernon Reid, guitar; Muzz Skillings, bass; William Calhoun, drums.

History: Born in London and raised in New York, group founder Reid first attracted attention in drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson’s adventurous band the Decoding Society from 1980 to ’85. He worked with renegade N.Y. punk/funk bands like the Contortions and Defunkt, played on albums by Mick Jagger and rap group Public Enemy, and cut a duet album with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell. Fed up with industry expectations that almost automatically steer black musicians toward funk and R&B;, Reid founded the Black Rock Coalition with critic Greg Tate in 1985 and began staging shows at New York clubs. The BRC aims to increase the range of expression allowed black musicians, and Living Colour is both Reid’s personal outlet and the Coalition’s flagship ensemble. Singer Glover, an actor who appeared in “Platoon,” and Calhoun joined the band in 1986 and Skillings completed the lineup a month after running into Reid at a BRC meeting. The group’s live performances in East Coast clubs and endorsements by Jagger (who produced an early Living Colour demo) and Jeff Beck helped create a buzz that resulted in the release last month of “Vivid,” the band’s debut album on Epic.

Sound: Living Colour is a black rock band--not a funk group with a metallic lead guitar on top--but its music isn’t regulation-issue hard rock. Funk flavorings, Caribbean inflections and some unusual chord twists season a fierce attack that generally jumps off from heavy, syncopated riffing in the Led Zeppelin mold. Skillings and Calhoun bring a limber spring to the most crunching rhythms, Glover displays more vocal finesse than the hard-rock norm, and Reid is an explosively inventive player whose fuzzed-out flurries stay on the right side of excessive. Tracks like “Cult of Personality,” “Open Letter (To a Landlord),” and “Which Way to America?” tackle provocative themes that are downright radical by hard-rock standards. Living Colour’s only shortcoming is its inconsistency in framing its challenging words and fiery playing with memorable hooks.

Shows: Tuesday at the Roxy, next Sunday at the Coach House.