:: Farflung - A Wound In Eternity

Farflung

After releasing five full-length albums through a number of obscure labels and two compilation efforts, Los Angeles based psychedelic/progressive space rock outfit Farflung have found a new home with Meteor City Records for their sixth full-length effort ‘A Wound In Eternity’. With a revamped line-up, Farflung are back with their first new material in six long years, and it’s been well and truly worth the wait.

Opening track ‘Unborn Planet’ is the perfect example of where Farflung’s altered minds and particular angle on the psychedelic stoner rock sound is centred. In layman terms, if you can imagine the experimental edge of Hawkwind in the ‘70’s, the melodic riffing of Queens Of The Stone Age and blend it up with a lavish dose of Monster Magnet’s brute masculine force, you know exactly where the band are heading. ‘Endless Drifting Wreck’ is a huge rocking anthem that is heavy on both the riffs and the sound effect/atmospheric/psychedelic Moog keyboards, while the tribal-like ‘Like It Has Never Been’ is a slow building number that begins with a gentle spoken word mantra before finishing up with a huge wall of noise.

‘Stella Volo’ and ‘Invincible’ are perhaps two of the albums more straight-forward sounding tracks with the focus more on the riffs than anything else, while ‘IX’ and ‘Silver Shrooms’ (to some extent) lean more towards the more experimental side of things, with dark and menacing tones beautifully captured with the low level vocals and effective acoustic framework. Finishing up the album is the extended ‘Precognition’, which starts out with a long winding introduction before closing with a huge rocking manner.

In the past, Farflung have been undermined by a mix of poor distribution, bad luck and a general lack of exposure. But with MeteorCity Records backing them, and the overall strength of ‘A Wound In Eternity’ as a whole, I can only hope that Farflung will receive their due credit as one of the best space rock outfits on the scene today.