Black Flag
Slip It In

THE REVIEW

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.