Farflung

Since forming in the mid-'90s, Farflung have scratched out a place in the psychedelic community with a reverential attention to the details Can invented and the minds that Hawkwind obliterated. The similarities are often so evident it can actually sound as if Farflung are in fact a collaboration between Hawkwind and Can. That is not necessarily a bad thing as their music -- steeped in sleepy psychedelia as it is -- avoids the pitfalls of much slow-mo space rock whenever the L.A.-based six-piece (three guitars) steps on the gas, which is early and often. Passages of thrumming stoner metal veer off into frequent interstellar freakouts. Yet even at their most far-outiest, the band never loses a playfulness and warmth (think of a physical embodiment of the song "Moon Shake" by Can) that set them apart from the vast majority of humorless psyche bands. The group has released six albums in the years following the 1995 appearance of their debut, 25,000 Feet Per Second, the most recent being Wound in Eternity, which came out in May 2008.