Not that long ago now a good friend of mine pointed me to a YouTube video of a KEXP session. I hadn’t heard of the band before but I kinda like exploring new sounds so I popped my headphones in and hit play. The session was recorded at the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes and that band were Slift. That video of a live performance of the title track from their Ummon album blew my tiny mind. How could a three-piece band produce this all-consuming wall of sound? That video, I later discovered, had become a viral sensation racking up more than 1.4 million YouTube views. Deservedly so. I absolutely devoured their back catalogue and have been eagerly awaiting what they were going to do next.
SLIFT is made up of brothers Jean and Remí Fossat and Canek Flores, who first met the brothers Fossat at school. With two studio and one live album under their belts they’ve now made the move to Sub Pop after their successful singles club release with the label in late 2023. Their third album is now out and is called Ilion after the Ancient Greek word for the city of Troy and, conceptually speaking, picks up where UMMON left off. The band describe the album as follows.
“This is an album constructed in the manner of a Homeric story. Where the two records differ is that Ilion is about human emotions and feelings, whereas Ummon was telling an epic story with a distant view. Ilion represents the fall of humanity and the rebirth of all things in time and space.”
Each of the eight tracks on show is expansive, with the exception of one track all clock in upwards of eight minutes. Let’s dive in and get lost in this new world Slift have created for us.
We open on the title track, Jean Fosset’s primal vocal as ever providing the biting point that the song hangs on. It’s his brothers stunning bass work that caught my ear immediately. It sounds like they’ve joined Led Zep for a moment. It’s that trademark Slift wall of noise that carries us into the album. Briefly punctuated by a calming Kosmische interlude before we are called back to the action again with the war cry from Jean. By the time we reach the closing moments we’ve entered Black Sabbath territory which leads us neatly into the next track.
It’s with a 70’s prog flourish that we enter headlong at full speed into ‘Nimh’. Again, just listen to the bass create the complex framework for the heavy guitars to play on. That ascending chord sequence, (you’ll know it when you hear it) just gets me buzzing every time. This feels like a journey at breakneck speed through the galaxy and into the void. The almost ambient break in the middle felt like emerging from a black hole into some new existence before the band return, doomier and sludgier than before to welcome us to our new reality.
A galactic clock ticking ushers in ‘The Words That Have Never Been Said’. Not for long though, Jean’s roar leads the charge as the band appear, all at once, amps set to infinity. Things soon settle into a more jazzy, more free flowing form. With Flores rolling around his toms and the dancing around the songs core structure it’s not long before we slow down to an atmospheric breakdown before returning, more furious than ever to the animated and lively spaced-out sounds. There’s something intoxicating about that rolling rhythm, ever shifting and undulating. This song casts a spell over the listener and has you in it’s thrall until the closing notes.
Things lean into jazz territory with the serpentine sax solo opening ‘Confluence’. It’s epic space jazz though. What we have is the sound of the cosmos passing by as we exit the milky way for destinations unknown. When Jean’s spiralling guitar kicks in its almost in complete sympathy to the sax part, as if passing the baton in some intergalactic relay. That slowly evolves ushering in a harder sound to close out.
The band wind the clock back to mediaeval times with the druidic chanting of ‘Weavers Weft’. This feels like a very modern take on seventies prog. The psychedelia is turned up to the max whilst ramping up the utter ferocity of the guitar textures. It almost enters doom metal territory in places. Always pulling back though to allow the core themes of the song shine through. This track is the sound of the band revelling in experimentation and it really suits them.
‘Uruk’ begins with the eeriest of riffs. Like some long-lost soundtrack to a forgotten horror movie. Remi takes up vocal duties allowing his higher register to add to the atmosphere of mystery and supernatural shenanigans. Jean’s guitar sounds different here. In the quieter movements its thinner and more vulnerable than usual. However, when this song explodes that impenetrable sonic assault returns and we are helpless to it.
The 12-minute odyssey that is ‘The Story That Has Never Been Told’ begins innocently enough. Spaced out synths and lightly picked out guitar plays foil to the brother’s chorister like vocals. Guitars start to ramp up into a ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ like arpeggio laden delivery. The band never venture into that doom metal sound across the expanse of this track which really makes it leap out the speakers. Especially that frenetic and joyous closing section. The sheer abandon is infectious and you are just swept up and taken along for the ride.
The album closes out on a highly experimental piece of electronica. ‘Enter the Loop’ throws us one final curveball as the band create a dense soundscape populated by arrhythmic drums, washes of modular synth and metallic feedback. It’s so alien and unnerving. Slift choose to leave us on edge and wondering what we have just experienced. It’s a bold and ballsy way to close out an album and I applaud them for it.
Ilion is yet another statement album from Slift. This band have always been sonic explorers but on Ilion that exploration has taken them to somewhere I don’t think they even though they would end up. This isn’t one of those albums you can just pop on and enjoy a side of. This album demands your full attention because, like it or not, you’re going on a journey to places you never even knew existed. There’s so much to enjoy here for fans of post rock, shoegaze, psyche, prog,,, hell, even folk music. You owe it to yourself to put aside one hour and 19 minutes of your day to disappear into the grooves of this album. Who knows where it’ll take you.
Ilion is out now on Sub Pop Records. There’s a few lovely vinyl variants as well as CD and digital options too.
You can follow Slift on social media here…
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