It’s been a productive several months for Romanian power trio The :Egocentrics. The Timisoara band’s debut, Love Fear Choices and Astronauts (review here), earned them a deal with German psych juggernaut Nasoni Records, they played numerous shows, and apparently somehow found time to write and record their new sophomore outing, Center of the Cyclone, showing remarkable growth in the process. Their sound is still aligned to the jammy side of the international desert rock scene – bands like Colour Haze, My Sleeping Karma and earlier Los Natas providing reference points – but compared to the debut, this vinyl-ready seven-song, 40-minute outing feels much more accomplished, structured and self-assured. It’s still the same band, the same players involved, but there’s a newfound sense of purpose behind what they’re doing, as though they’ve found the sound they want to execute and now have the prowess and chemistry to make it happen.

And don’t get me wrong, I liked Love Fear Choices and Astronauts. I’m not about to start slagging that record in favor of Center of the Cyclone, but it’s a different breed of the same animal. The songs here – still completely instrumental, still led mostly by guitarist Brenn with sampled or spoken vocals mixed into the ambience – are more complete in terms of ideology. They’re not just jams, but actively trying to evoke an atmosphere. Right from opener “A Road Less Travelled,” which features the organ work of Mihai Toma, who also recorded Center of the Cyclone this past fall, The :Egocentrics sound calmer, more confident and solid all around. The pastoral feel continues through the more active “Off the Center,” which is the longest song on the album at just over eight minutes. Drummer Hera and bassist Jess give the guitars plenty of room without losing sight of the rhythm at work, and their space-charged ring-outs and crashes lend a surprisingly epic feel where otherwise “A Road Less Travelled” would just fizzle.

Brenn’s guitar offers newfound lyricism on “Sink or Swim,” which is perhaps the cut most reminiscent of Natas’ Delmar or Ciudad de Brahman, Mihai Toma again contributing, this time on electric piano and spoken vocals. The :Egocentrics keep a lively feel to their approach across the entirety of Center of the Cyclone, but contrary to the album’s name, it’s not all whirlwind and craziness. Rather, the band incorporate a variety of moods and vibes, the wistful fuzz of “Sink or Swim” being just one of them, and balanced immediately by centerpiece track “Blissful Idiot,” which is faster, near-punkish in its percussion and about the most straightforwardly stoner rock song the trio have on offer. The back-and-forth interplay between more subdued and active material works because The :Egocentrics don’t just rely on “riff and crash” as a formula for either. Rather, the parts of which these songs are constructed are intricate and well developed, their changes subtle and warm without being trite or redundant stylistically. If Brenn, Hera and Jess sounded genuine in their affection for psychedelia before, now they sound completely at home in it as well.

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From the jazzy opening notes of “Spacewulf,” a three-part 12-minute epic the last two parts of which come before the first (which is third — kablooie went my brain), colon-ized Romanian instrumental trio The :Egocentrics make no bones about their love of jamming heavy psychedelia on their debut long player, the comma-less Love Fear Choices and Astronauts. The album’s already been picked up for release by Nasoni Records, bringers of all that is spacey and European, but guitarist Brenn, bassist Jess and drummer Hera (all on a first-name basis) did an issue on their own first, pushing the record’s four tracks the old fashioned way… on MySpace.

If you blinked, you probably missed it, but yes, I did say there are only four tracks on Love Fear Choices and Astronauts, which means The :Egocentrics are bound to be packing some heady expanse in the songs. Sure enough, not a one of them is under 10 minutes, and all four — “Spacewulf,” “20 12,” “Bright Dawn of the Soul” and “Mystic Initiation” — show the expansive influence that acts like Colour Haze (who have vocals, but are given to similar lengthy instrumental passages anyway), 35007 and Rotor have had on the next crop of European stoner rockers. The :Egocentrics and likeminded groups like The Machine from The Netherlands, who also focus more on jams than structure and warmth of atmosphere than tightness of execution, have an analog classic psych feel, but are actually pulling off a style almost entirely modern. Their jams are heavy and driving, but still somehow best experienced as a whole without parsing the component parts or analyzing the experience to death.

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