ALBUM REVIEW: Rezn - "Let It Burn"

By: Victor Van Ommen

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 17/02/2017

Label: Independent

 

REZN relies on hefty passages of music but the key to the band’s sound is how they combine this heft with a droning melody. Imagine Velvet Underground wrapped up in a Mars Red Sky jacket and you’ll understand why these Chicago boys are worth your attention.  This is a gem of a debut and albums of this quality don’t come around very often

“Let It Burn” DD track listing:

1). Relax

2). Wake

3). Dread

4). Rezurrection

5). Harvest the Void

6). Pipe Dream

7). The Creature

8). Fall into the Sky

9). Orbit

10). Astral Sage

The Review:

REZN’s “Let it Burn” might go down in history as a gem of an album that no one has ever heard. That’s unfortunate, but let’s band together and try and change that!

REZN relies on hefty passages of music but the key to the band’s sound is how they combine this heft with a droning melody. Imagine Velvet Underground wrapped up in a Mars Red Sky jacket and you’ll understand why these Chicago boys are worth your attention.

At an hour long, “Let It Burn” is one of those sit-down-and-listen albums. It demands attention. The first four tracks – all singular word titles – flow from one into the next, subtly building on one another, culminating in the heavy psych groove of “Rezurrection.” A steady beat and hypnotic guitar line carry this song on as their singer(s) swallows the lyrics with a long, drawn out and layered delivery. Very spacey and very cool.

The transition from “Rezurrection” into “Harvest the Void” is smooth, passing by almost unnoticed. It doesn’t take long before the latter’s intro proves a deception, and REZN turns up the gas from here on out. The calm, morose setting that REZN set in the album’s front half is used in the back half as a starting point for the band to run off and explore from.

Case in point; lay opener “Relax” next to track 7, “The Creature.” Both are solidified by a plodding melody, but do so in different ways. “Relax” calls on the listener to do just as the title suggests, whereas “The Creature” jumps around in a doomy chorus ripe for some good old fashioned slow head banging. Without losing grasp of the slow push, REZN manages to find ways to increase in intensity. “Fall Into Sky,” for example plays loud and soft off of each other, but does so in such a way that the softer moments of the song hold more tension than the rolling riffs in the louder parts.

Keep an eye out for these guys. Debut albums like these are few and far between. REZN know what they’re going for and they know how to make it their own. What works against them is that the spacey-doom-rock genre is so oversaturated that it’s going to take a steady growth of listeners to be exposed to this band.

“Let it Burn” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook