Slip It In

Slip It In was recorded on a brief break on the continuous tour for My War, 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[2] over being the group's de facto 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 and My War. The songs are inspired by heavy metal, yet the material also shows traces of "sludgy 'pre-grunge' metal, hardcore punk, and thrash to blues rock and jazz."[1] 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 jazz into an ominous hybrid."

The album cover features a provocative piece of Raymond Pettibon 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."[3] She has also indicated that she has come to terms with the cover art choice.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[4]
Christgau's Record Guide	C+[5]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[6]
The Great Rock Discography	5/10[7]
MusicHound Rock	[8]
Punknews.org	[1]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[9]

Slip It In has received mixed to positive reviews over the years. Ira Robbins 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."[10] John Dougan of AllMusic 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), it "still wanders a bit".[4] Robert Christgau was also quite negative, despite reserving some praise for the song "You're Not Evil".[5]

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."[1]

A low budget music video 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.

• Henry Rollins – lead vocals
• Greg Ginn – guitars
• Kira Roessler – bass, backing vocals
• Bill Stevenson – drums

• Davo Claassen – backing vocals
• Suzi Gardner – backing vocals
• Chuck Dukowski – backing vocals
• Greg Ginn - production
• Bill Stevenson - production
• Spot – production, engineering, mixing
• Raymond Pettibon – artwork