
On the earth of Nineteen Eighties guitar music, bands didn’t come any extra uncompromising than Residing Color. Without delay fiercely political and nonstop party-starters, the New York foursome have been a real anomaly: an all-black rock band. Whereas their sound included parts from extra historically African-American genres like jazz and funk, there was no mistaking Residing Color as something apart from a tough rock outfit, full with monster riffs and mind-bending solos.
These have been due to guitarist Vernon Reid, who took the shredding methods employed by the likes of Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai, ramped up the ferocious velocity, and created his personal signature type. Throughout dwell performances and jam periods, Reid stays infamous for his improvisational abilities, which regularly come within the type of lightning-fast fills that may depart even essentially the most hardened of velocity freaks catching their breath.
Residing Color was totally shaped from the very first notes of their very first document, 1988’s Vivid. The opening monitor on that album can be the band’s greatest hit, the extreme and energetic ‘Cult of Character’. Bursting out the gate with an iconic and brain-bruising riff, ‘Cult of Character’ finds Reid taking part in so intensely that you simply’d be forgiven for pondering that this was his one and solely alternative to get on document.
Reid reveals off each final trick up his sleeve: shredding, harmonics, bends, dive bomb, and complex scales are all featured. Whereas the tune lives and dies by that muscular riff, Reid additionally throws in energy chords, some lighter selecting work within the tune’s bridge, and a few improvisations. Earlier than every new verse, Reid will get a possibility to let unfastened with fills – the outcomes are searing and almost unimaginable to duplicate.
All of it serves as an appetizer to Reid’s true highlight second through the tune’s solo. With a flurry of notes that might break any guitarist’s thoughts, Reid is a twister of distortion and sweep selecting as he tears via the whammy bar runs and quickly ascending/descending traces. Whereas it would sound like a jumbled mess at instances, Reid by no means sacrifices method for flash and magnificence. The ‘Cult of Character’ solo tells a narrative, even when the story is simply that Vernon Reid is without doubt one of the most underrated guitarists of his era.
Try the remoted guitar for Residing Color’s ‘Cult of Character’ down beneath.