The Slip
Eisenhower
Bar/None
Just in case you lost track of The Slip shortly after the group released its last studio album, here’s a quick recap of what’s happened: In the past four years the Rhode Island-bred trio has toured with folk-poet Nathan Moore, suffered through George W. Bush’s second presidential coup, largely relocated from New England to Montreal, watched countless jamband message board dwellers age into indie-rock bloggers, and even reached its largest audience yet thanks to a spot on the PlayStation 2 smash hit Guitar Hero. Somewhere in there, the band also figured how to write a great song. The results of The Slip’s incredible transformation are documented on Eisenhower, its long- labored return to the studio and inaugural partnership with veteran producer Matthew Ellard.
Unquestionably the trio’s most fully realized studio work to date, Eisenhower finds The Slip, particularly guitarist Brad Barr,
embracing its latent singer/songwriter talents, offering a series of
carefully sculpted, bohemian folk-rock gems like the fuzzy masterpiece
“Soft Machine.” Similarly, oddball ballads like “If One of Us Should
Fall“ resonate with the emotional punch of The Shins’ finest pop, while
single-length rockers like “Children of December” and the bouncy
“Mothwing Bite” succeed, mostly because its tight structures provide
The Slip’s musicianship with the context it’s always needed.The group
also shows off its soft, sensitive side, especially on the somber yet
strangely hopeful reflection “Life in Disguise.”
But,despite its growth,The Slip still sounds like,well, The Slip,
mostly thanks to the quirky time signatures engrained in its collective
skull through a few semesters at Berklee and more than a few years on
the improv-rock circuit. The group’s avant-garde influences are still
there, too, hidden in the crevices of the instrumental “First Panda in
Space” and the weird, layered “Paper Birds.” And while he largely shies
away from any direct political attacks, Barr can’t help slinging at
least a little mud during “Even Rats” (“Maybe the men on Capitol Hill
need a little less Jack and a little more Jill”).
Lyrically, Barr also humbly acknowledges his band’s growth. “It’s the
day before the rest of my life,” he declares at the start of
“Airplane/Primitive,” his words never echoing more truth a decade into
The Slip’s career. The Slip’s time has finally arrived.
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