Over the last decade, Chicago quartet REZN have carved out a unique place in the landscapeof heavy music, chiseling away at the crude formations of the topography, mining the mostconcentrated metallic ore from the dirt, and shaping it all into somethingmonumental, imposing,and divine. While REZN has always fused seismic riffs with effortless beauty and grandeur, theirshifting strategies for wielding that polarity have involved varied compositional and stylisticdecisions, most notably the light-and-dark contrast of companion albumsSolace(2023) andBurden(2024). But with their newest full-length offering,Cycles in the Infinite Dream, REZNmasterfully harness the oppressive weight of their full sonic armory to celestial melodies andsublime synesthesia-inducing atmospherics in a manner so seamless it feels otherworldly, as ifoccupying a liminal space between two realities.While REZN traffic in the unbridled realms of metal and untethered reaches of psychedelia, theirlatest release showcases a bandworking with discipline and intention, even when thoseintentions are rendered to be purposefully cryptic. As the album title implies,Cycles in theInfinite Dreamexplores the nexus of our waking and nocturnal worlds. “We moved towards thedream and subconscious state as a lyrical concept and melodic theme,” the band explains. “Thepseudo-waking state is a reflection of a second existence—something that you can flee to or beimprisoned by.” Much like the subconscious-guided work of David Lynch,Cycles in the InfiniteDreamexists as parallax between the artist and the audience, creating an obscured anddistorted space that is both familiar and alien, like a corridor into our past where we recognizeour surroundings but somehow still feel lost within its warped geometry.REZN have long operated—and thrived—in the subterranean realm of music heads who cravethe aural equivalent of altered states. And withCycles in the Infinite Dream, they have createdtheir most psychotropic work to date. - Written by Brian Cook