The new album by up-and-coming French band SLIFT on Sub Pop is a loud, no-frills and inspiring work full of powerful anthems, doom/stoner metal riffs and surprising dynamics. In a technical sense, every previous album by the French trio SLIFT has been a fantasy - a mix of genres and forms that allowed the band to improvise and jam until they seemed to wriggle into space together. Their acclaimed third album, 2024's »Ilion«, was a sci-fi story, built up from 10- to 13-minute exploratory escapades, often starting with doom metal or stoner rock before turning freely into glorious instrumental oblivion. But with a certain deliberate irony, SLIFT's fourth album is actually called »Fantasia«. It is their leanest and most direct album to date. It is also their most captivating album to date, a pointed saga about overcoming international upheavals, performed by a band that is moving forward at full speed and not wasting a single second. Although only Jean and bassist Rémi Fossat are related, SLIFT is basically a band of brothers. Drummer Canek Flores has been friends since high school, and 2026 marks a decade together in this trio. They rehearse with religious regularity in a basement in the countryside near Toulouse, in the jam room where they have long indulged in their penchant for long-winded miracles. For the album recordings for »Fantasia«, they crossed the northern border of France into Belgium to record a compact set of sleek, agile and punchy songs in the huge live room of Daft Studios. The band's diverse influences are obvious: the album is reminiscent of Clutch in Full Ferocity, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov, Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath from the "Master of Reality" era. And the sonic fabric is supported by the skilful mixing of Kurt Ballou (Converge, Cave In, High on Fire). The songs don't lack the complexity or intensity that has made SLIFT a rising star of heavy music; they've simply found new ways to weave the complexity of their past into each piece, like a tapestry that reveals a new layer every time you look. In doing so, they convey a confirming and urgent message: Together, we can still change the times in which we live. Nowadays, it's terribly easy to feel powerless. On »Fantasia«, SLIFT deals directly with the modern onslaught of cruelty and absurdity, be it indifference to our home planet or to each other. But these eight songs are about trusting in a hidden force to fight back, believing in a world where something we can't yet put into words or define not only offers a way to break the status quo, but perhaps even destroy it completely. SLIFT are loud, heavy and aggressive in these anthems. They are preparing for a fight that they believe we can still win.