REZN

Since their inception, REZN have mined the stark monochromatic depths of underground metal and fused them with the kaleidoscopic delights of psychedelia, prog rock, and shoegaze. With their latest album Burden, they plumb the deepest, bleakest trenches of their sound while retaining a lifeline into the cosmos. Staking a claim at the crossroads of the hazy dimensions of modern psych acts like Black Angels, the cavernous gloom and reverb-drenched guitar of bands like Spectral Voice, and the lurching low-end meditations of artists like OM, REZN have created Burdenan album of immense amp-worshipping weight and intoxicating instrumentation.Burden was recorded simultaneously with their previous album Solace back in July 2021 at Earth Analog Studios in Tolono, IL by Matt Russell. Rather than release a double album, REZN divided the material into two separate records, each with its own distinct emotional timbre. Whereas Solace was meant to uplift and create a sense of narcotic dreaminess, Burden skews towards the themes of delirium, claustrophobia, and misery. Musically, Burden favors riffs over atmosphere, percussion over ether, dissonance over beauty, but there is still an undeniable cohesion between it and its predecessor. The marriage of brute force and sublime textures has always been a key tactic in REZNs approacha duality that may explain their touring history with fellow synesthesia-inducing metallurgists Elder and Russian Circlesbut the spectrum of the bands mercurial temperaments has never felt as clearly defined and fully explored as it does on Burden.Burdens artwork is a literal continuation of Solaces landscape painting, showing the fiery depths at the foot of the mountain range. Even Burdens most reserved moments feel like the calm before the storm, a gathering of momentum before the punishing closer and lead single Chasm, a megalithic weedian crusher further bolstered by a scorching guitar solo courtesy of Russian Circles Mike Sullivan. We wrote Chasm to depict the final phase of an existential descent, when youre on the last few steps of the spiral staircase and realize theres no going back, says Rob McWilliams. We wanted it to sound like walls closing in on all sides and youre looking at the exit getting further and further away. Mikes melodic finger-tapping style blurs the section into a kind of dizzying, infernal panic attack. In the final moment of the song youre faced with the repetitive churning of a molten, fuzzed-out wall of sound that builds until the audio itself starts to singe and catch fire, then abruptly self destructs.