Slift played Brighton Music Hall – 10/23

French psych-jammers Slift headlined Brighton Music Hall last month with support from L.A.’s Meatbodies.

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The heavy-psych/space rock style honed by the Toulouse trio Slift over the past 8 years resonates pretty powerfully on record (especially 2020’s Ummon, the sophomore disc that put them on many folks’ radars), but it’s a sound you can’t help but imagine as a totally crushing force on stage anytime you put them on. Having finally caught the band a few weeks back at a buzzing Brighton Music Hall, I can confirm that’s 100% true.

Illuminated by heady, kinetic projections, guitarist/vocalist/synth manipulator Jean Fossat, his bassist brother Rémi and drummer Canek Flores took flight with a relentless, immersive set to the delight of a packed house. There were moments of serene ambience and exploration, certainly, but the dominant mode was full-throttle, interstellar propulsion. The set’s peaks, which truly did make up a majority of its runtime, felt akin to standing in the center of a sonic wind tunnel, buffeted by a locked-in rhythmic gallop and a searing barrage of riffs. Overwhelming? Maybe. But exhilarating undoubtedly.

Openers Meatbodies (not to be confused with Meat Wave, Body Meat or others in the meat-core sector) took a slightly more traditional approach to the garage-psych palette, with pleasingly blissed-out results. You likely know bandleader Chad Ubovich as one-third of the hard-rocking Ty Segall project Fuzz, or from his touring rolls with Segall and Mikal Cronin, and Meatbodies sit satisfyingly at the intersection of all that.

Scroll for photos from both sets below.