In The Rough Guide to Rock, it was said that the Slits more than any other band placed enthusiasm above musical credibility and that they made great music in spite of not being able to play.
Whilst this is certainly true of what they did on Cut, on these first recordings the Slits were a shrill and generic punk band without any of the distinctive rhythms that made "Cut" such an interesting listen. Ari Up on these early tracks has also failed to develop the piercing vocal style and sounds like she is trying to sing rock with the most extreme shrillness imaginable: a move that can only be described as a severe failure because she sounds as if she is singing without any melody and her effort to keep up with the noisy playing of Palmolive, Viv Albertine and Tessa Politt is ineffective. Although most of the songs on "The Peel Sessions" were later reworked for "Cut", the sound is nothing like that album and has been done far too many times before.
Even the three later tracks which come from the Return of the Giant Slits era have the same problem occasionally apparent even after the Slits showed they were much more than a generic punk band of failing to gel tightly enough to be memorable. In fact, they are less catchy than the overblown, sound of the early recordings here, which does them no credit at all.
If you really want to know why the Slits were genuinely influential on some of the best artists, female or otherwise, of the 1990s and 2000s you will not find out here.
