ALBUM REVIEW: Fantasia – Slift
Since forming in 2016, French psychedelic trio SLIFT haven’t so much torn up the rock genre rulebook as rewritten the whole thing completely in an unknown alien language before burning it to ashes, blowing the ashes up, then sending whatever’s left on a rocket into deep space. Their acclaimed third album, 2024’s Ilion, was made up of a series of expansive, spaced-out sci-fi epics which explored themes influenced by Greek mythology. Its follow-up, Fantasia, is a leaner, more grounded offering though is no less ambitious in both its musicality and its concept.
SLIFT have been hailed in recent years as saviours of heavy psychedelic music, their musical influences very much rooted in the stalwarts of the genre before layering experimental sounds and themes on top of those influences to create something genuinely unique and exciting. Imagine HAWKWIND, BLACK SABBATH and PINK FLOYD jamming with FUGAZI and TALKING HEADS and you’ll be somewhere near but also fifteen million miles away.
Album opener and title track Fantasia demonstrates this perfectly. Starting off with howling feedback and a thundering, doomy rhythm section before Jean Fossat’s desperate post-punk cries elevate the song beyond the familiar, it is a rallying cry for a desperate world to find “a fire for your soul” and “take away the pain on your shoulders.” Sparkling shimmering keyboards lift the song further, reminiscent of the spacier moments on Ilion. Cleverly, this same keyboard pattern continues into Corrupted Sky, a song which really showcases the musical talents of the trio. Drummer Canek Flores’ driving, urgent verse patterns add an infectious groove under Jean’s Ian Mackaye-like vocals. This really is a song that somehow blends the edge of The Argument era FUGAZI and the groove of SABBATH, and it works even better than one might imagine. The anger and desperation in the vocal delivery sits perfectly alongside the songs themes of fear, xenophobia and finding the strength to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.
In contrast to their last effort then, Fantasia is an undoubtedly human record, one inspired by the band’s desire to finally speak out about the state of our world today and a concept that is expanded upon in album highlight The Village which tells the story of a stranger arriving in “a village by the sea”, only to be rejected by its inhabitants who “call me a liar…and say I poisoned their water.” It builds from an ominous, unnerving march to a desperate cry for help in its chorus with the music, lyrics and theme combining into as perfect a five minutes as you can experience in a piece of experimental rock music.
Kurt Ballou of CONVERGE has mixed the record and has done a phenomenal job in balancing everything to give it a huge yet totally organic sound. The keyboards never overpower, the drums, bass and guitars sit in the mix alongside each other without anything being swallowed up and Jean Fosset’s astonishing vocals complement it all, sometimes soaring over it and at others sitting back to let the rest of the band work their magic.
A Storm Of Wings sees the band return to a more traditional stoner rock groove, albeit one that sounds like it’s being led by an entirely unhinged David Byrne-esque frontman, while the mournful doom of album closer Secret Mirror will no doubt keep the more traditional Iommi riffheads engaged. However, it’s in Fantasia’s most unexpected moments where the real magic lies. In Orbis Tertius for example, a song inspired by postmodern writer Jorge Luis Borges’ short story of the same name which tells a tale of an entirely fictional world bleeding into the reality of our own. Musically progressive and complex, it is still so tied into the heavy groove laid down by Flores and bassist Remi Fosset that it is both wonderfully familiar and completely insane at the same time. Catchy and angular. Mad and making perfect sense. This is the beauty of this record. It is like discovering music from a different dimension.
Fantasia is not just an incredible psychedelic rock record, it is an incredible rock record full-stop. Somehow SLIFT continue to push the boundaries and in doing so are creating some of the most exciting heavy music around.
Rating: 10/10
Fantasia is set for release on June 5th via Sub Pop.
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