When choosing things to review, many of us choose based on genre affinity, name affinity, vibe affinity—just about any calling works.1 REZN’s whole concept of providing heavy shoegaze-laden psychedelic doom speaks deeply to me, even if the waters where music that self-describes this way provides an often less-than delivery, I accepted the band on their terms. With a DIY aesthetic that has built REZN a following over the past seven years, their hard work has paid off and brought them to the Sargent House family to release Burden more widely as a partner album follow-up to the critically good Solace. But with an experience that’s so entwined, the two cover arts even connected, can Burden prove an experience worthy all to its own?
Despite its lush guitar textures and breathy, dreamy vocal work—reminiscent both of the nasally drift of jam bands like Elder or the infiltrating snap of Smashing Pumpkin’s Billy Corgan—Solace felt like a smooth and level experience that was building to some sort of darker drama. In Burden, the opening chimes that give way to a present and grinding bass that rattles into industrial snare hits signal where Solace feared to go, or rather that to which it aspired. And as this tonal descent persists, Burden carves out a defined spot in the wobbling REZN discog with a glistening but rock-dragging edge. This act has gone a long way in using their pedal exploration and watery vocal modulations to define a sound that rings both true to the continually hazed-out scene of psychedelic doom while retaining a few traceable REZN nugs.
Most importantly, though, throughout Burden REZN maintains a sense of forward motion, which can be tricky in a lane that prides itself largely on “tone porn” and iterative sounds. Several jangles recall refrains from their previous work (“Indigo,” “Collapse” specifically), but the careful construction of each song as thicker and more hissing entity gives even similar characters an extra YOB-y edge—a little more earth in REZN’s air, if you will. And, much like those legendary long-form, slow-burn performers, REZN uses percussion that snaps from rock-driven and playful to heavy-handed doom crushing on the calculated and cascading roll of a riff. Only on “Bleak Patterns” does Burden wander about a mode that places too much value in a tempo-crawling repetition, which feels out of place among the fuller in frolic attitude that fills so much of the album.
Yet for all of this album’s immediacy in riff impact and success in moody hypnotism, a lack of sonically stunning and memorable peaks continues to define a REZN trend. The introductory puff that pulls through “Indigo” threatens the cool and calm demeanor that this band normally possesses with a welcome turbulence. Similarly too does the near-heroic guitar wailing that closes “Instinct” and the Pink Floyd-ian sax crooning that tags a dark side to “Soft Prey.” But, even after as many listens as I’ve sunk into Burden—probably too many given how comfortable the ride is—its space between these climactic posts becomes notably drifting and atmospheric in an attention-dropping manner. Undoubtedly, many of you dear readers and listeners are the kind of dreamer who may swirl about each modular oscillation or track the trajectory of each space-bound, dissipating lead. However, I find myself often rudely awakened from the peace of happening by the train whistle guitar squeal2 that screeches forth the call of the closing and fuzzed-out “Chasm.”
If it sounds like I’m being a touch tough on the exploratory and serene sounds that these Chicago psychmongers offer with Burden, forgive me—I never expected to be reviewing REZN three times now in the span of about fifteen months. But I do think that it is a marker of success that even in that tight calendar turn, REZN has managed to stay consistently good, if just a tad over-consistent. Burden, as each record in this quick sequence has, adds another fold into the inward-gazing reflections that this musical tribe prizes. REZN may not have re-aligned the stars with riffed-out yet atmospheric tone summoning, but they give me all the reason to still try and wait for whatever it is they do next.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Sargent House | Bandcamp
Websites: rezn.band | rezzzn.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/reznband
Releases Worldwide: June 14th, 2024
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