Like a whisper on the wind. When a bands time comes it reverberates through the air. Everyone breathes it in, everyone lines up and drinks the Kool-Aid. In the mainstream this is called marketing and hype. In the underground it’s down to hard work, chipping away at the coal face and learning ones craft and delivering a truly great album.
For Slift that time has arrived.
Formed by brothers Jean and Remi Fossat and school friend Canek Flores. Slift honed their mix of stoner rock, psych, and alternative noise over several releases and lots of live shows. The tremors of second album “ummon” (2020) sent shock waves around the underground. The first pressing of the vinyl was snapped up in what seemed like hours. That dreaded word “Buzz” started being mentioned. A filmed festival appearance was viewed over a million times on youtube. Signing to legendary label Sub-Pop, the stand alone single “Unseen” sold out and now changes hands for $50 a pop.
Following the tremors “Ilion” is a richter scale in the red earthquake. This is an opus work with songs stretching out musically and in running time. The album kicks of with the title track at an impressive 11 minutes +. It’s a stomper. If Fugazi played noisy psych prog it would sound like this. The last album thread a similar path but Ilion feels more dense, heavy, and relentless. Quiter moments within the songs are almost pastoral with floating vocals before slamming back in like a ramraid on your ears.
I could go track to track and point out different musical landmarks, To your left you will see some post-rock, if you look to your right some garage rock, and straight ahead a large Psych blizzard. This would be an exercise in futility. The best way to experience this album is to place yourself in the pathway of this maelstrom of sound and let it lift you up and dump your broken corpse miles away from your original location.
Taking on this album is exhausting in the most satisfying way imaginable. Works of this magnitude generally run out of steam and ideas by the time they finish. However, this is not the case with Slift. This is an album that will see them move up festival bills and widen their audience considerably. Watching the traffic on social media in several record collecting groups on the day this album was released (Yes I am that nerdy!!!!) Group Members personal copies of “Ilion” has been posted over and over which suggests this Album has already been tagged with the over used term Future Classic. experienced in a live setting these songs will demolish what’s left of your hearing.
This is evidence, as if it was needed that hard work and great music can generate that most important currency in the underground. Word of mouth. The conversation is starting to get louder and Slift deserve to be shouted about a LOT!!!, and if you will excuse this humble writer using a ancient cliché.
YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS ALBUM
-Bobo Coen
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