REZN, Mute Duo, Bridge Farmers

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 Burden—an 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 REZN’s approach—a duality that may explain their

touring history with fellow synesthesia-inducing metallurgists Elder and Russian Circles—but

the spectrum of the band’s mercurial temperaments has never felt as clearly defined and fully

explored as it does on Burden.

Burden’s artwork is a literal continuation of Solace’s landscape painting, showing the fiery

depths at the foot of the mountain range. Even Burden’s 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 Circle’s Mike Sullivan. “We wrote ‘Chasm’ to depict the final phase of an existential

descent, when you're on the last few steps of the spiral staircase and realize there's no going

back,” says Rob McWilliams. “We wanted it to sound like walls closing in on all sides and

you're looking at the exit getting further and further away. Mike’s melodic finger-tapping style

blurs the section into a kind of dizzying, infernal panic attack. In the final moment of the song

you're 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."

As knowledgeable gear heads, experienced sound engineers, and seasoned DIY veterans,

REZN were able to create an early body of work devoid of any sonic compromises in their

speaker-rattling dirges and heady lysergic forays. Their four self-released albums—Let It Burn

(2017), Calm Black Water (2018), Chaotic Divine (2020), and Solace (2023)—have all gone

through multiple vinyl pressings, and the international underground heavy psych world has

routinely selected the band for distinguished festival slots across North America and Europe.

From their inception, REZN have been a fiercely independent band with a fully realized

aesthetic and a fervent cult following. Now ready to take things even further, REZN have

teamed up with Sargent House to release Burden unto the world.