Sweet Tip by Insides (Review)

It’s still Insides… so it’s not all bad. It’s not great either.
Sweet Tip - Insides

Someone told me once that I wouldn’t really appreciate a martini until I was at least 30. I drank the thing anyway, but regardless, it’s a handy way to approach this record, which is decidedly a mature pleasure. (Translation: It doesn’t rock at all, dude.)

Make no mistake, neither are there any spacey or super arty concepts to drag one into what really is not a real redeemable, at least when described, musical form. That is to say, “sorta loungy adult easy listening with our and bee-isms.” If you don’t like Stereolab’s progression toward smarty-pants too-cool-for-indie-slobs-ness, this may not be your cup of tea, because here, there’s not even a smidge of drone or academic background to redeem the shall we say, less than masculine, west coast jazz piddlings this record sometimes comes to.

But what the hell, it’s Insides, man! If their previous records “Euphoria” and “Clear Skin” would be any indication, Sweet Tip should be something along the lines of an intricate, lyrical mood piece with accompaniment falling somewhere between pristine 4ad/electro-minimalism and the middlest of the road pop. Because, yeah, they did once name a song “Carly Simon.”

Well, with all that said, let me further break down why this is such a “adult” record. It’s all choice of recreational drugs really. Euphoria’s manic moments were like the result of some bad Paxil n’ Ketel One cocktails and Clear Skin resembled Steve Reich on a salvia binge, but Sweet Tip is nothing so much as the Viagra kicking in on a middle-aged person who notices that they’ve been watching their social life pass on like some television show they’d never stay home to watch, let alone tape. I mean, a song titled “Blue Nimbus” that talks about “a warm feeling in the stomach,” fer cryin out loud? Lyrics about “wash n’ wear hair” and fitting into a pair of pants?!

Having said that, they continue to “take a sippa da drink” and sashay around the room, making younger people remember that the wrong side of 30 means also getting out of the liquor store line faster from not having to show ID. Very bluntly, these are some tame beats and laid back songs. You could hear any of this on the radio, and not in a good way. But it’s still Insides… so it’s not all bad. It’s not great either.

Written by Pearson Greer.

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