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People, are you tired of the usual things that mark everyday life and so you become your favorite masked and virtual superhero? OK, that’s not good. Return to the material plane of life made of sweat and blood. To do this, there's nothing better than a nice brutal malty booze that reduces you like a beast (after all, we’re always someone’s sheep) with an appropriate soundtrack that doesn’t make you uncomfortable with your total depravity. Well: pop this album into the stereo, light up a nice cigarette, and open the first beer... let the party begin and don’t you worry about a thing. Henry’s half-orc-barbarian will take care of everything.
Released in 1984 (truly a crappy year for music!!!), with a new lineup change, featuring Kira on bass (No, it's not a dog...she's the ex-wife of Mike Watt of the Minutemen) and Bill Stevenson of the Descendents on drums, joining the "old" Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn, Black Flag breathe life into, merging the violence of Damaged and the heaviness of My War, this great intellectual amusement, which seems like a gigantic FUCK YOU, called Slip It In.
Distortions, screams, simulated orgasms blend, while the drums hit and the bass throbs. This album is heavy and stands out for having ZERO overdubs (oh, the legendary Spot and SST production). When Greg goes into a solo, which doesn’t happen rarely, underneath there’s nothing but emptiness. Henry seems to sing (I'm not saying well!) better than in the past, for instance "Black coffee" or "Wound Up", although somewhat awkwardly, are in tune but that’s not what matters. In short, everything is more refined compared to the past, from production to composition, given the maturity reached (it's known: after maturity comes old age and death).
I absolutely love Black Flag and it will always be that way. This is because their music is violent and heavy. I like them because I enjoy shouting Rise Above at the top of my lungs and thinking that out there, there’s someone like me who enjoys simple things. I like them because if you look at them, they are normal people. They don’t need mohawks and stuff to look angry because they are really, truly angry. I like them because they are brutal, depraved human cases, and because I prefer, to a Big Mac, the cheerful comic couple, bread&salami. I like them because they are hard and pure and because they couldn't care less about everything, even themselves, and Henry Rollins is one of the least talented singers in history, but one of my favorite singers. Anyway, did this band invent something new? Something that some people, more bored than me, call post-hardcore? I don’t know and I don’t care... I'm too busy doing nothing and drunk to reflect. I wish... I don’t know what I wish for. I'm too animal, I'm too Henry Rollins to ask myself questions... there's always time for that, at least I hope. I'll save them and they are kept, locked away, in my archive that one day I’ll open... when the beer runs out. For now, you and everything can go to hell.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
03 Wound Up (04:23)
I walk by your house
To see if you were at home
It was my only chance
I felt so alone
It always seems
I get so wound up
To feel so let down
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
Don't you ever see the way I look at you?
Could you understand why I feel the way I do?
I have a lot to show you
Feel I have something to prove
There's things I'd like to tell you
My brain is slow to move
I wish you'd give me a second
So I could make you see
That no one in the world could look at you
And see the things I see
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
Don't you ever see the way I look at you?
Could you understand why I feel the way I do?
I have strong emotions
I keep them to myself
I know I can write them
I know I can sing them
That's what I'll have to do
Because in my heart
Deep in my heart
I keep a picture of you
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
I feel so let down
I get so wound up
06 The Bars (04:37)
There was a girl I knew
She saw the prison inside
She cursed her keeper
And swore she'd get free
Every time I see
I got my hands wrapped around the bars
I want out right now
She led an angel's life
On angel's wings
Jumped out her apartment window
And hit the street below
Every time I see
I got my hands wrapped around the bars
I can't shut off my mind
And now I've waited, my hands are wrapped around the bars
I'm burning, my soul is pushed against the bars
The bars, the lies, the lies, lies, lies
Are trapped behind my eyes
My mind hates my body
My body hates my soul
I close my eyes and fight
Inside my own black hole
Every time I see
I got my hands wrapped around the bars
I want out right now!
I've lived my life
I'm doing my time
I realize life's lie
Every time I see
I got my hands wrapped around the bars
I can't shut off my mind
And now I'm waiting, my hands are wrapped around the bars
I'm burning, my soul is pushed against the bars
The bars, the lies, the lies, lies, lies
They're trapped behind my eyes
07 My Ghetto (02:05)
My ghetto My ghetto My ghetto My ghetto, MY GHETTO
My ghetto gets desperate and it drags you in
You see me with that black dog
You know that’s when you walk into my ghetto
Cause its Hungary and no ones let in
my ghetto gets jealous and it invites you in
you walk into my ghetto
my ghetto sucks in sad bad trash slaps you on the back and says howdy glad you could come on down
my ghettos gonna treat right
The sunshine rolls in with bad timing
My ghetto gets horny and it sucks you in
Cause were all tripped out and no ones let in
My ghetto gets desperate and it drags you in
Think white trash think white trash
And if I cried over love a thousand times
Stay with me, stay with me
For a moment, For forever
Cause I've got nothing
And I'd give it all to you
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Other reviews
By maryg
"The title track reveals itself as a captivating opener with a sensual duet between Henry Rollins and the then fifteen-year-old Suzi Gardner."
"Black Flag demonstrated that a hardcore track could easily last even seven minutes, painted in the concluding 'You're Not Evil'."
