Album Review: SLIFT – La Planète Inexplorée

I’m not quite sure what is going on in France but there seems to be a resurgence of original garage and psychedelia, that is delivered with a gallic flair, emerging from the country in the shape of Fuzzy Vox, Chicken Diamond, The Defigurheads and now SLIFT, who have released their debut album, La Planète Inexplorée, that follows up on the trio’s debut EP, Space Is The Key, that was released back in 2017. La Planète Inexplorée features nine ambitious, powerful tracks that are led by manic drumming, heavy fuzz and razor-egded riffs that are set somewhere between modern garage rock and 70’s era Space Rock. 

La Planète Inexplorée opens appropriately enough with Heavy Road, this is exactly the path that this track follows with a combination of hypnotic space rock, 70’s pub rock riffs and guttural snotty garage vocals. Something In The Mist takes you back to authentic garage tinged psyschelia before Dopple Ganger releases a blast of unhinged garage rock. Ant Skull and Fearless Eye are a pair of tracks that deliver a hit of unhinged fuzz drenched psychedelia before Trapezohedron takes you back into the realm of hypnotic psychedelia. La Planète Inexplorée builds to a climax with the album’s title track and the finale of Silent Giant that take the album to new and experimental heights.

Slift have unveiled an album that manages to capture the entire spectrum of garage rock and psychedelia in a shade under forty minutes, La Planète Inexplorée is an album for fans of their aforementioned countrymen, garage bands both old and new and the twisted strangeness that is currently personified in the UK by Evil Blizzard. This isn’t punk rock by any stretch of the imagination, and if you’re looking for breakneck riffs this album isn’t for you, but it’s influences come from the same place as the first wave of punk rock and if you want something to expand your horizons then you don’t need to look any further than SLIFT.

You can stream and purchase La Planète Inexplorée via Bandcamp here

SLIFT‘s Facebook page is here