Woah, these guys are from Boston??  Dunno where I've been but they've put together a disc that has really given me pause as I insert one disc in, punt another out.  Yes, the Slip's new disc "Eisenhower" is borderline vanilla rock but it's truly got a lot of dynamic twists that I was not expecting.  There's only three of them that have created their warm sound, so that leads me to believe that Bar/None Records has given them quite the boost in the studio.  However, it's probably mostly the calm vocals of Brad Barr and the varied instrumentation from his brother Andrew and drummer Friedman that have given them the air of comfort, I suppose. They sort of remind me of another local group, the Mobius Band.

Of what I mainly like, the two-sided "Airplane/Primitive" is engaging for all 6:52 minutes of it.  A strong opening of "Children of December" and "Even Rats" reveals the catchiness of the band, even if the latter song relies a little too much on the "wah oh oh wah ohs" for a singalong bit.  Finally, the Wilco'd approach to "Paper Birds" was also very welcome, as somewhere around 3 minutes in the band sets off on an epic sweep through varied tones and emotional layers.

I can certainly envision a few of these tunes appearing on an O.C.-type soundtrack ("Suffocation Keep"), but I have to say that the Slip sound quite good.  Not that they need anymore plugging from me, but check out a few tunes at their MySpace page:  The Slip.