deeply psychedelic metal blew me completely out of the water.  Rarely do my already decaying ears consider a show too loud, but I left Emporium that night with my bones still chattering and my ears still trying to dig their way out of the vibrational landslide they had just endured.

 

The Chicago stoner/doom/sludge scene is a highly active and prolific one, having produced droves of noteworthy bands.  But as of late, none have achieved such a quick and impressive rise to prominence as REZN, who have successfully crafted a completely idiosyncratic and otherworldly sound with their debut album alone.  Doom metal – Chicago doom in particular – tends to lean sonically on harsh, mournful, derelict aesthetics, creating works of blackened rage or utter despair.  REZN, on the other hand, eschews these feelings of angst and hatred for more sinister, delightfully evil tones that are infused with an undeniable lust for life, playing out through a demonic, black-eyed grin that causes the listener to think “just what are these guys hiding?”.  Though drawing comparisons to many of history’s most legendary stoner doom acts, REZN incorporate the best elements of their predecessors into a brand of dark psychedelia as of yet unheard by human ears.  On Let it Burn, they borrowed the droning, trance-like qualities of Sleep, the grumbling satanism of Electric Wizard, the heavy lilting fuzz of Windhand, and the carnivorous guitar tone of The Sword’s early material, and combined all of these into a succinct package topped off with their own interdimensional shamanic dance.  Now, with the release of their second LP only one year later, REZN sail their faithful flagship towards a promising horizon, continuing to flesh out their refreshingly unique style while expanding into uncharted sonic territory.

 

Calm Black Water is in many ways similar to Let it Burn: both consist of long, droning compositions that conjure up diversity not within individual tracks, but rather across the album as a whole, establishing REZN’s modus operandi of presenting each record as a singular work of art rather than a collection of songs.  On Calm Black Water, REZN fully realizes this goal by performing seamless transitions between each track, melding the entire record into an aesthetically unified journey that propels the listener into the deepest caverns of the mind.

 

Just like with Let it Burn, Calm Black Water’s prevailing focus is atmosphere.  Trading in arid desert vision quests for the frigid depths of the ocean, REZN now venture into the realm of cosmic doom, infusing their sound with bone-chilling Cthuhlian tendrils.  The accomplishments of Let it Burn have been highly focused and intensified on Calm Black Water, reinforcing REZN’s signature style.  Although both albums feature a similar length, this latest effort has been pared down from ten tracks of varying length to only six – each clocking in around six to seven minutes – cutting off excess fat while preserving all of the beef.  The record begins in relatively familiar territory; its opening track “Iceberg” bears a strong resemblance to Let it Burn’s opener “Relax”, delivering a steady drone of heavily stoned riffs with a melodic refrain.  But as “Iceberg” fades into the next track, the record’s direct resemblance to REZN’s debut fades with it – like the album’s artwork suggests, the most mysterious aspects of Calm Black Water lie beneath the surface. 

 

Calm Black Water alternates deftly between two clearly defined aspects of REZN’s sound: moments of slippery, softly echoing psychedelia and the thundering doom elegies that follow.  Providing a perfect auditory analog to its cover art, this record is a vast, incomprehensible monster encased in a dazzling crystalline shell.  The album strikes a healthy balance between these contrasting textures, sometimes juggling between the two styles within a single track, sometimes committing entire songs to one or the other.  For instance, “Iceberg”, representing the latter category of straightforward heavy doom, is followed immediately by “Mirrored Mirage”, which is undoubtedly the most transcendentally psychedelic track on the album.  “Mirrored Mirage” engulfs the listener in a sea of warbling frequencies and wavering sitar before singer Phil Cangelosi delivers his eerily hypnotic melody over a steaming landscape of china and ride cymbals, delving into a realm almost reminiscent of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.  With every corner of the track steeped in modular synthesizers and a vast array of effects, the hallucinatory quality therein strays away from the traditional warmth of psych rock and begins to venture closer to the darkly ominous psychedelia of Shpongle or Kalya Scintilla.

 

“Quantum Being”, the album’s only single, represents a flawless marriage between the album’s hushed, sinister moments, and its most driving, triumphant riffs.  Devoted followers of the band should already be familiar with this song, as REZN has featured it in their live shows as early as June 2018.  When I first heard “Quantum Being” during their opening set at Bongripper’s record release show in July, I couldn’t help but crack an evil smile upon being treated to the track’s deliciously soupy bass tones, dripping with LSD vibrations.  Furthermore I was especially blown away by REZN’s rapidly advancing ability to summon spiraling, blooming riffs , from which they would launch into some of the most gloriously fuzzy chasms of doom I had ever heard.  But even in their heaviest moments, REZN choose to refrain from growls, howls, and screeches, instead sticking to Cangelosi’s meditative, brightly intoned, slightly nasal melodies that land somewhere between the vocal stylings of Acid King’s Lori S. and Ozzy’s timeless wail.

 

Calm Black Water’s deeply layered warbling wall of FX is front-and-center on its fifth track, “Bottom Feeder”, which I consider to be REZN’s most eclectic and experimental composition to date.  The song’s first half descends upon the listener through a compound laser beam of phasers, flangers, and fuzz stretched out into infinity through limitless reverb and delay, with the occasional envelope filter slurping the band’s tone into a black hole before regurgitating it back out twice as loud and ten times as strange as before.  But despite the record’s dense veil of alien effects, its high-fidelity production keeps REZN’s musical intentions intact; the haze may be thick, but we can clearly make out the forms hidden within.  The latter portion of “Bottom Feeder” features a wickedly cool dose of tribal percussion, juxtaposing its electronic manipulation with primordial, organic rhythms before transitioning directly into “Sunken”, the album’s final track.  In “Sunken”, an otherworldly, lush, and forlorn intro vibrates and blurs before suddenly peeling away to reveal a monolithic wall of lumbering, cavernous riffs.  As the massive guitar tone and crashing cymbals swell into a unified, insurmountable assault, synthesizers explode out of the fray and soar upward, growing more and more relentless until the track breaks apart into a distorted crunch, and then subsides.

 

Calm Black Water is a major achievement for REZN, showing both major forward progress from Let it Burn and incredible potential for things to come.  This latest effort retains all of the groovy transcendence of their debut while managing to be much less repetitive; where Let it Burn sought to create an atmosphere of drone by endlessly repeating certain passages, Calm Black Water builds patterns more gradually by starting ideas simply and growing them into something more complex.  My only complaint is that despite considerable experimentation, the record’s songs mostly adhere to the same structure throughout.  However, Calm Black Water never succumbs to tedium: rather, it captivates the listener for the full duration of the record, providing an utterly unique take on stoner doom that will enthrall anyone in search of a fresh take on the genre.

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FINAL SCORE:  8/10

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Calm Black Water is out today, October 10th, on OFF the record label.The album can be purchased via REZN's Bandcamp page.

For international orders, head to offtherecordlabel@bigcartel.com
 

You can also follow REZN on Facebook and Instagram, and catch their upcoming tour of the eastern US.

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