Philadelphia,PA - Living Colour at the Trocadero Preview
Living Colour

Hard-core progenitors Bad Brains and ska-punks Fishbone lit the fuse for a rock-and-roll culture clash in the early and mid-1980s. But it took Living Colour's 1988 debut, Vivid - a shape-shifting fusion of socially conscious, funkified hard rock and proto rap-metal - to finally bury the notion that hard rock was exclusively a white man's wonderland for frivolous ideas and three-chord fluff. Reunited for its first new album in 10 years, Living Colour inflicts a most righteous pummeling with the 15-track Collideoscope (Sanctuary). The sociopolitical shock treatment of Sly and the Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On collides with guitarist Vernon Reid's killer-watt shrapnel and some diffuse productions like the techno tremors of "In Your Name" and the lysergic chord patterns of "Operation: Mind Control." It's the sound of a band positively reborn.

- Patrick Berkery
Living Colour, with Tony C & the Truth and Steamroller Picnic, at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Trocadero, 1003 Arch St. Tickets: $19. Phone: 215-922-5483.