The Third Eye

Rezn is releasing their newest offering on March 8th, a six-track album aptly named, Solace. The heavy psychedelic power contained within is an uncompromising journey into sound, a journey that you won’t soon forget after even just one listen to the full album.

About Rezn and Solace

“The music churned out by Chicago quartet REZN somehow conveys crushing mass and cosmic weightlessness. The seed for the band’s megaton riffs and psychedelic journeys was planted when guitarist Rob McWilliams and bassist Phil Cangelosi began jamming together at age twelve in the D.C. commuter town of Leesburg, VA. They relocated to Chicago in 2015 and recruited local sound engineer Patrick Dunn to bash on the drums.”

The music they created for Solace sees Rezn continuing with their vision while also bringing us a conduit through which we can leave our physical beings and project our astral selves into a realm only seen by The Third Eye.

Take track number three, “Reversal,” an almost 8-minute-long experience that will leave you breathless and wanting more before it is even over.

Opening with a massive wall of sound and a crushing riff, Rezn grabs you immediately and then settles you in for a spacey, psychedelic-fueled ride.

There is a sense of calmness created shortly before the first verse, and the mystical side of this music will permeate your mind and body, allowing you to flow through the open spaces within it. Rezn uses a keen sense of dynamic shifting to accomplish this, bringing things to a lull before slowly increasing the intensity of even the most mellow of passages. You don’t merely hear the music; you feel it in the core of your body, running through you, becoming a part of who you are.

Another favorite is “Faded and Fleeting,” whose beginning is set in the most beautiful of musical places, only for it to capture a deeper beauty when the vocals begin. The sweet sounds are increased with an excellent saxophone solo that starts about 2 minutes into the song; it adds a haunting aspect that had me envisioning a dimly lit city street, a light fog surrounding a lonely man pouring his feelings into his instrument. This isn’t a very long song, and the sax solo tapers off as the track ends.

Closing up the album is “Webbed Roots,” another example of why Rezn is among the best of the best in this genre.

The intro is gorgeous, with the guitars bordering on the mellow yet still having the slightest edge to the riff; the tones achieved here are also incredible. When Rezn drops us into a heavy riff, it’s exactly what the track needs and is accompanied by some cool spacey tones.

About halfway through, we get an airy interlude driven by the bass and drums, while the guitars have an almost middle eastern flair. This section’s highlight is the vocals, among the best on the record.

What comes next is more of the dynamic power that Rezn brings into their music, creating a peak that will eventually move us into a mellow outro that ends the album with grace and style.

Final Thoughts

As I recovered from this listening experience, all I wanted to do was start the album over and dig into any of the elements I may have missed. To me, that is the sign of a powerful album, the immediate need to hit play again and be carried away by the music. So, saying that my final thoughts are positive would be downplaying exactly how incredible I feel Solace is.

One downside at the moment is that the vinyl pre-order is already sold out, leaving only digital copies to be had. I hope they’ll do a repress at some point, but for now, we’ll have to make do with what’s available. So, with that said, go pre-order the digital, listen to the first single, “Possession,” and prepare your vessel for a trip you will never want to return. Enjoy!!!

Support REZN by checking out their Bandcamp and website, or finding them on social media (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube).

This review was written by Tom Hanno, who has been writing reviews for the last 7 years but has been sharing his love of music for the majority of his life. Originally starting out at the now defunct Chimera Magazine, he is currently contributing to Doomed and Stoned, The Sleeping Shaman, The Doom Charts, Tom’s Reviews, and The Third Eye. Read more of Tom’s reviews by checking out his Linktree.