Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you’d know that members of the Philadelphia, PA-based heavy psych act Ecstatic Vision, currently comprised of Doug Sabolik, Michael Field Connor, Jordan Crouse, and Kevin Nickles initially formed in 2013 to primarily play “what they wanted to hear.” And with the release of their 2015 debut effort, Sonic Praise, an effort that drew from a wild variety of influences including Krautrock, Fela Kuti, Sun Ra, Hawkwind, Aphrodite’s Child, Olatunji, Can, and early Amon Duul ll and for primal, psychedelic and intense live sets. Adding to a growing profile, the band toured with an impressive list of internationally renowned acts including Enslaved, YOB and Uncle Acid and The Dead Beats, Earthless, Red Fang, Acid King and others, and followed that with a lengthy European tour that included dates with Bang and Pentagram, as well as a set at the Roadburn Festival.
The Philadelphia-based hard psych band’s much-anticipated, sophomore follow up, Raw Rock Fury is slated for an April 7, 2017 release through Relapse Records and as the band explained of the album in press notes, “With Raw Rock Fury, we set up to make an album that would remind listeners of what an unpolished, dangerous rock recording should sound like.” And the album’s first single, “You Got It (Or You Don’t),” which I wrote about last night, is as the band described it as a “searing mash-up of the driving rhythms of Sly and the Family Stone mixed with the sound of Hawkwind playing Funhouse-era Troglodyte Rock.” And in many ways, the new single revealed a wild sense of unpredictability and danger that most contemporary rock sorely lacks. The album’s latest single “The Electric Step” manages to mesh the trippy, cosmic, stoner rock vibe of their debut with a swaggering, raw, unbridled and improvised energy as the band pairs blistering guitar work with guitar chords played through layers and layers of effects pedals, a forceful, propulsive rhythm and howled vocals to create what may be the band’s most explosive, insistent and primal stomp yet.