''Slip It In'' is the fourth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by the American

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk ...

band Black Flag, released in 1984 on SST Records. ''Slip It In'' is an extension of the sound Black Flag utilized on its second album ''

My War ''My War'' is the second studio album by American band Black Flag. It was the first of three full-length albums released by the band in 1984. It polarized fans due to the LP's B-side, on which the band slowed down to a heavy, Black Sabbath-e ...

'': heavy, cathartic, intense, dense and progressive. The album pursued the newer, lengthier song arrangements that Black Flag would develop until its demise. It also features

Henry Rollins Henry Lawrence Garfield (born February 13, 1961), known professionally as Henry Rollins, is an American singer, writer, spoken word artist, actor, and presenter. After performing in the short-lived hardcore punk band State of Alert in 1980, Rolli ...

' further development as a songwriter, contributing four of eight tracks on the album. This album also demonstrates Black Flag's increasing use of instrumentals, where

Greg Ginn Gregory Regis Ginn (born June 8, 1954) is an American guitarist, bassist, singer and songwriter, best known for being the leader, primary songwriter, and the only continuous member of the hardcore punk band Black Flag, which he founded and led ...

demonstrates his increasingly more complex playing style.

Recording and style

''Slip It In'' was recorded on a brief break on the continuous tour for ''

'', which saw Black Flag at their most ambitious. This year they would release three full-length albums and toured nearly constantly, with Rollins noting 178 performances for the year, and about that many for 1985. With Dukowski gone, Ginn ceded much of the spotlight to Rollins, who had expressed some discomfort over being the group's ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

'' spokesman, while Ginn was the recognized leader (Ginn wrote the majority of the group's songs and lyrics). In many ways, ''Slip It In'' is a fusion of the styles utilized on their previous releases (with vocals), ''

Damaged Damage is any change in a thing, often a physical object, that degrades it away from its initial state. It can broadly be defined as "changes introduced into a system that adversely affect its current or future performance".Farrar, C.R., Sohn, H. ...

'' and ''My War''. The songs are inspired by heavy metal, yet the material also shows traces of " sludgy 'pre-grunge'

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

, and

thrash Thrash may refer to: *Thrashing (computer science), where increasing resources are used to do a decreasing amount of work *Thrash (surname) *Thrash, mascot of the Atlanta Thrashers *''Thrash Rally'', a top-down perspective rally racing video game ...

blues rock Blues rock is a fusion music genre that combines elements of blues and rock music. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes w ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

." The track "My Ghetto" even contains traces of a musical style that would later become known as powerviolence. At the middle point of the album, there is an instrumental track called "Obliteration" which highlights Ginn's chord progressions where Brandon Sideleau of Punknews.org claims that it "mashes sludge and

into an ominous hybrid."

Cover art

The album cover features a provocative piece of

Raymond Pettibon Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn, June 16, 1957) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. Pettibon came to prominence in the early 1980s in the southern California punk rock scene, creating posters and album art mainly for ...

artwork, as many of Black Flag's album/single covers and gig fliers do. The image is of a nun embracing a bare male leg. Bassist Kira Roessler has expressed complex feelings about the image. For example, she has said "I didn't really recognize that they might have interesting ideas about women and that me being in the band was controversial. I didn't think that way until I saw the cover of ''Slip It In'' and I kind of realized, for one thing, they certainly didn't glorify women. That cover does not glorify women." She has also indicated that she has come to terms with the cover art choice.

Reception

''Slip It In'' has received mixed to positive reviews over the years.

Ira Robbins ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

dismissed the album, writing that it "blurs the line between moronic punk and moronic metal. Songs are mostly built on trite riffs repeated endlessly; the rude lyrics of the title song are performed complete with enthusiastic sex noises for anyone who fails to grasp the point and/or be offended by it." John Dougan of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

wrote that while the album was a bit better than its predecessor and featured "increasingly avant-garde and exciting" guitarwork from Greg Ginn (which was compared to

James Blood Ulmer James "Blood" Ulmer (born February 8, 1940) is an American jazz, free funk and blues guitarist and singer. Ulmer plays a Gibson Byrdland guitar. His guitar sound has been described as "jagged" and "stinging". His singing has been called "ragge ...

), it "still wanders a bit".

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

was also quite negative, despite reserving some praise for the song "You're Not Evil". On the other hand, Brandon Sideleau of Punknews.org calls it "a classic and a landmark for independent music." He defends the title track, calling it a "punk metal masterpiece often unfairly seen as sexist, when in reality it's quite the opposite. Greg Ginn's lyrics are raunchy and angry, but the song is more about people and their choices than anything else."

Track listing

Marketing

A low budget

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

was produced for the album's title track. The music video revolves around a teacher lip syncing to the vocals to the song along with the class and cuts to clips to the band performing to the song. The video ends with the teacher telling about the album coming out and promoting their "students" to see them on their tour.

Personnel

– lead vocals *

– guitars *

Kira Roessler Kira Roessler (born June 12, 1961) is an American musician and two-time Emmy Award-winning dialogue editor. She is best known as the bassist for the influential hardcore punk band Black Flag from 1983 to 1985. Since the mid-1980s, she has been ...

– bass, backing vocals * Bill Stevenson – drums

Additional personnel

*Davo Claassen – backing vocals * Suzi Gardner – backing vocals *

Chuck Dukowski Gary Arthur McDaniel (born February 1, 1954 ), better known by his stage name Chuck Dukowski, is an American punk rock musician most well known for being the bass player, and occasional songwriter for Black Flag. Career Early years Dukowski ...

– backing vocals *Greg Ginn - production *Bill Stevenson - production *

Spot Spot or SPOT may refer to: Places * Spot, North Carolina, a community in the United States * The Spot, New South Wales, a locality in Sydney, Australia * South Pole Traverse, sometimes called the South Pole Overland Traverse People * Spot (produ ...

– production, engineering, mixing *

– artwork

Charts

References

{{Authority control Black Flag (band) albums 1984 albums Albums produced by Spot (producer) SST Records albums Albums produced by Bill Stevenson (musician)