{"id":30404,"date":"2026-02-04T05:30:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T10:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30404"},"modified":"2025-11-18T12:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:52:09","slug":"album-review-vernon-reid-hoodoo-telemetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/album-review-vernon-reid-hoodoo-telemetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Vernon Reid \u2013 Hoodoo Telemetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As an artist, Vernon Reid is difficult to pin down genre-wise. And by all evidence, he likes it that way. Although he had long been known among fellow musicians as an inspired and prodigiously talented guitarist, London-born Reid came to wider fame leading his band Living Colour in the middle 1980s. Variously tagged as hard rock, alternative metal and funk-metal, Living Colour was a platform for Reid\u2019s technical, lightning-fast guitar work and the band\u2019s signature song, the Grammy-winning 1988 single “Cult of Personality.”<\/p>\n

Living Colour went on hiatus from 1995 to 2000 and has released six studio albums to date. Alongside and in between his activities with Living Colour, Reid has embarked on many other musical projects, including collaborations with other celebrated artists across the musical spectrum. Those albums have found him working with Jack Bruce, John Medeski, Bill Frisell, Elliot Sharp, David Torn and others. He has also been as a sideman for Tracy Chapman, Whitney Houston, Mick Jagger, Public Enemy and a host of other high-profile artists; the man is a player\u2019s player.<\/p>\n

Along the way, however, one thing he has done somewhat infrequently is make a solo album. Depending on how one counts, Reid has released three solo albums \u2013 2006\u2019s Other True Self<\/em> being the most recent \u2013 but those jazz-leaning releases featured (and were usually co-billed with) his group Masque. Now in 2025 comes Hoodoo Telemetry<\/em>, the first release of any kind from Reid since Living Colour\u2019s 2017 album Shade<\/em>. It\u2019s also the first album in nearly 30 years to feature only Reid\u2019s name on the cover. And even more true to form than his other work, the eclectic Hoodoo Telemetry<\/em> fiercely resists genre categorization.<\/p>\n

The album opens with Reid\u2019s thickly distorted and sustained guitar soaring over the top of a rock-solid foundation on “Door of No Return.” Rock instrumental fans may detect some similarities to the work of melodic shredders Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. Reid seems to play faster and faster as the song unfolds, though he never lets go of melody. The dizzying beats and complicated scat melodies of “Freedom Jazz Dance” suggest one of the possible paths Jimi Hendrix might have explored had he lived. “Good Afternoon Everyone” folds hip- and trip-hop textures into a disorienting mix. The funk-blues of “The Haunting” recall Sly Stone while retaining Reid\u2019s distinctively original character.<\/p>\n

The changes keep coming. “Bronx Paradox” is as much jazz and funk as it is turntable-scratching. “Or Knot” features shards of squalling guitar crosstalk. “Dying to Live” is a lush, soaring ballad with an impassioned Reid vocal. A cover of Cream\u2019s “Politician” makes the song\u2019s blues riff even heavier, more imposing. “Beautiful Bastard” showcases Reid\u2019s skill at writing a catchy, memorable and radio-ready song. But then the cacophonous “A Meditation on Arthur Rhames” will scare off all but the most ardent avant-noise-rock fan.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the manner in which it\u2019s delivered, it\u2019s difficult to know how to take “My Little Zulu Babe”; is it a parody of blues and\/or Americana, a pastiche, or a loving take on those forms? Hoodoo Telemetry<\/em> ends as it began, with another winning Reid instrumental (albeit with spoken word bits), “Brave New World.” The song may remind some listeners of Talking Heads, but then again, it may not. Vernon Reid follows his muse, keeping listeners on their toes. His latest album is challenging and rewarding in equal measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As an artist, Vernon Reid is difficult to pin down genre-wise. And by all evidence, he likes it that way. Although he had long been known among fellow musicians as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[5809],"class_list":["post-30404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-vernon-reid","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30406,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30404\/revisions\/30406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}