On ‘Cycles in the Infinite Dream’, the Chicago quartet bring the melody forward without giving up the low end. Six albums in, a Rob McWilliams vocal hook can still make you hear a REZN riff differently.
There comes a point in a doom band’s career when people start asking whether the new record is heavier. A fair question, although by album six you’d think someone would have brought a scale.
REZN have spent much of the past decade finding out how much space they can fit around a very heavy riff. ‘Solace’ let more air through; ‘Burden’ made that air feel considerably more expensive. On ‘Cycles in the Infinite Dream’, out via Sargent House (Botch, Brutus, Chelsea Wolfe, The Armed…), the familiar mass is still there. What changes is where your ear goes first.
On “Cloudfall”, a broad, post-metal riff could comfortably run the whole song. Then Rob McWilliams gives you a melody that stays with you even as the guitars swell around it. His voice has some of the suspended quality you hear in Deftones or Failure: calm enough to draw you closer, distant enough to keep you guessing. It’s a good fit for a song about sleep paralysis. Your body won’t move; apparently, the chorus can go wherever it likes.
What if the most disorienting thing a psychedelic band can give you is a tune you remember clearly?
That’s where this record gets interesting. The hooks give you something to hold on to while the other musicians quietly change the view. Phil Cangelosi’s bass and Patrick Dunn’s drums keep the songs rooted in doom, leaving Spencer Ouellette free to pull in another direction. On “Transient”, his saxophone gets an opening amid some of the record’s darker riffing. It changes the temperature of the song. It also has the good manners to leave before anyone starts calling this REZN’s jazz era.
The wider palette isn’t always about adding another layer. On “Aerial Birth” and “Escher”, the softer edges and hazier vocals let the songs drift without losing their shape. There’s some Elephant Tree in the warmth that hangs over the distortion, and Pallbearer in the way a melody can carry as much weight as the guitars. “Primal Thread” eventually brings the full heft back. Having spent a while away from it, you notice exactly how much room it takes up.
Whether that feels like a substantial shift may depend on what you want from REZN. If you’re waiting for the oppressive atmosphere of ‘Burden’ or the sense of discovery that came with ‘Chaotic Divine’, parts of ‘Cycles’ may feel a little too familiar. The changes are clearer when you follow the voice and the textures around it. The riff is often doing precisely what a REZN riff has always done. It just has more interesting company.
“Terra Preta” makes the best case for that approach. The warm, almost Americana guitar colours suggest Bask; the patient climb towards a much heavier peak brings Elder to mind. By the time the closer fills out, that warmth is still audible underneath the volume. It’s the kind of detail that makes you want to go back and hear where the song first started turning.
That’s the pleasure of ‘Cycles in the Infinite Dream’. You can come for the riff, get distracted by the lap steel and leave humming the bit you hadn’t expected to remember.
Same gravity. New things to get pulled towards.
