SLIFT @ BRIGHTON MUSIC HALL 10/23
Photography by Brianna Benitez
Review by Deja Tribbitt
It’s a cloudy and chilly night as I make my way to the Brighton Music Hall in Allston to see French metal band SLIFT. It’s perfect weather for a rock show. When I get to the venue, a half hour before doors even open, there’s already a line of fans forming outside, waiting for SLIFT. Once the doors open, they make a beeline for the barricade, followed by everyone who enters behind them and stays there the whole night. I would have done the same if I had known what was coming.
SLIFT is a French rock band formed in 2016 in Toulouse by brothers Jean, the band’s vocalist, guitarist, and synthesizer player, and Remi Fossat, the bass player, as well as Canek Flores, the drummer. The band’s discography contains elements of stoner, psychedelic, and space rock, as well as prog metal, spanning over four albums. SLIFT is currently touring in support of their latest psychedelic metal-leaning album, “Ilion,” which contains eight songs and clocks in at 79 minutes long.
The show’s opener was the band Meatbodies, a psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles. They started out strong, with an intense rock sound and an abstract video loop being projected behind them. The set continued for nearly an hour without a break of any kind, which grew tiresome to me about halfway through the set. While having a consistent tone is admirable for a band, in this context, the similarities between the songs, along with them coming right after the other with no time to really take them in, made them all blend together into a sonic mush that I was awaiting the end of rather than enjoying.
SLIFT began their set with ambient sound, courtesy of Jean on the synthesizer, before jumping into “Ilion,” the titular track of their latest album. The sound quality of the instruments was fantastic, with the guitar, drums, and even bass coming through clearly in the crowded venue, holding at least 300 people. With the show’s emphasis on the instruments, the lyrics of the songs did suffer. It was clear when Jean was singing through the mix and his showmanship, but the actual words being sung were not able to cut through.
Though SLIFT’s penchant for long songs led to fewer performances than you might imagine for an approximately 90-minute set, the band kept the show sonically dynamic for its entire runtime. The progressive nature of their music allowed for shifts in time signatures and genres within songs that kept me on my toes for the entire show. Trying to headbang on beat alone made it impossible to get bored. Even the band felt it, with Jean moving between his guitar and the synthesizer throughout the whole show.
The visuals that accompanied the show also stood out. Initially, it was just the band’s logo projected onto the wall behind them, but I was pleasantly surprised when the visuals changed to something more abstract when the first song began. I was even more surprised when a new part of the song played, and the visuals changed again to match it. As the concert went on, each song had its abstract visuals that changed with the music. The visuals ranged from reminding me of a campfire reflecting on the ocean at the end of summer to the work of horror manga artist Junji Ito, adding a cool visual aspect throughout the show. The visuals also served as lighting at specific points, making the band look like they were performing in stop motion.
One thing that has always drawn me to musicians is that they put a lot of effort into their live shows, and SLIFT does just that. They could have easily just kept a still image of their logo projected on the wall, had the synthesizer parts pre-recorded, and just played them with the songs, but they did not. They took the harder path and, in doing so, created a show that is both visually and sonically pleasing. I highly recommend seeing them next time they’re in town; I know I will.
