Ecstatic Vision (USA)

The Philadelphia trio Ecstatic Vision have toured with metal acts like YOB and Enslaved, and they're signed to the metal-associated label Relapse Records, and they look like a metal band. But Ecstatic Vision's forthcoming five-song debut, Sonic Praise, only occasionally intersects with metal, and when it does, it resembles bands like Hawkwind or Monster Magnet or Earthless.
These are tripped-out, sun-baked, cloud-high psychedelic jams drawing from free jazz, Krautrock, and Afrobeat, resulting in music that lives up to the lofty promises made in both the band's name and their album's title. To the extent this stuff might be conflated, confused, or associated with metal.
More aptly, though, it recalls the old Spacemen 3 album title (and mission statement), Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To. (To be fair, I have no idea if any of the guys in Ecstatic Vision have ever so much as considered a single toke; their music, though, suggests they have vast experience with all number of hallucinogens.

The German trio plays instrumental rock music influenced by Stoner- and Postrock as well as the trippy Psychedelic Rock of the 60s and 70s and the indigenous German Krautrock. It's no real surprise that that the journey of that spaceship actually began at the tent stage of a big German Stoner Rock festival in the year 2013. What we talk about is a spirit of DIY, uncompromising endurance and the strong will to play every single stage. After two records ('Muttermaschine' 2013, 'Absturz' 2015) and appearances at many of the most important European scene festivals like Stoned from the Underground, Freak Valley Festival, Sonic Blast Moledo, Into the Void or Rotormania, it seems like they got their landing permission at the European stages for heavy psychedelic music. In fall 2017 they released their third studio album 'Hangar' on Heavy Psych Records and did a 8-week-tour through 13 European countries to present the new material. People who heard the new songs live talk about a kind of stoner prog and maybe this impression hits right on the spot.