Rezn - Cycles in the Infinite Dream

Over the last decade, Chicago quartet Rezn have carved out a unique place in the landscape of heavy music, chiselling away at the crude formations of the topography, mining the most concentrated metallic ore from the dirt, and shaping it all into something monumental, imposing, and divine. While Rezn has always fused seismic riffs with effortless beauty and grandeur, their shifting strategies for wielding that polarity have involved varied compositional and stylistic decisions, most notably the light-and-dark contrast of companion albums Solace (2023) and Burden (2024). But with their newest full-length offering, Cycles in the Infinite Dream, Rezn masterfully harness the oppressive weight of their full sonic armoury to celestial melodies and sublime synaesthesia-inducing atmospherics in a manner so seamless it feels otherworldly, as if occupying a liminal space between two realities.

One of Rezn’s most understated assets lies within guitarist/singer Rob McWilliams’ vocal approach. Eschewing heavy music’s guttural growls or operatic gymnastics, McWilliams has been steadfast in his soaring, delay-drenched melodies, providing a beguiling path through even the most primal and pummelling moments in the band’s repertoire. Like a piper calling you to join him, McWilliams forges through the darkness yet remains cloaked in mystery. Indeed, the voice serves more as an instrument and a guidepost than as a vehicle for poetry or a portrait of a personality. “Most of the instrumentation was created with vocal melodies in mind,” the band clarifies. “We made a lot of choices that were dictated by the vocals, sometimes rewriting songs completely if the vocal melodies demanded it.” That said, the band’s instrumentation on the album is still in the foreground and is an exceptionally mesmerizing presence throughout.
REZN have long operated—and thrived—in the subterranean realm of music heads who crave the aural equivalent of altered states. And with Cycles in the Infinite Dream, they have created their most psychotropic work to date.

Genre: Doom Metal / Heavy Psyche