REZN: Burden In My Hand
Burden, the sublime new album from psychedelic doom masters REZN sees the band follow up last year’s similarly sublime album Solace. The similarities between these two closely related masterclasses in heavy and hypnotic psych rock is discussed in full with REZN vocalist/guitarist Rob McWilliams, who sat down with us to relay this in detail as well as discussing their forthcoming tour plans, which includes a first ever trip to the UK.
We begin talking all things Burden with Rob telling us about biggest influences on the sound of the album, starting with how it relates to their Solace album. “The concept of the album itself was what guided us towards the sound. We had Solace, which was released last year, that was part one of this two part series.”
Rob continues by giving as an in depth description of the ethos of Burden and how it links up with Solace. “With this record, we wanted to go basically as heavy as we could, within our own sound. So each song was designed to be more dismal and more of a descent into the album art itself, fiery depths underneath the mountain that was Solace.”
Rob also describes the creation of Burden and how the sounds of the two albums interlink. “In terms of songwriting we wanted to create this nice pairing with Solace, but also showing two paths that can exist on the same timeline.”
With Rob declaring that both Solace and Burden were recorded at the same time, talk turned to the possibility of both albums originally existing as a double album. “We were writing basically just for one album back in 2021 because it was the pandemic and we just had so much time on our hands, we just wanted to do something productive with it, so we just started writing and about ten ideas in or, so we were like, ‘there’s a lot of ideas here, but it might be too much for one album’.”
In the end, with the different sounds both Solace and Burden were born as Rob says, “ultimately, we just realised that about half the songs sound one way, and then the other half sounded a different direction. So we took both roads, we just put all of our focus into into each concept, and realised that, yeah, we could probably make this work as two separate albums.”
RUSSIAN CIRCLES guitarist Mike Sullivan guests on the track Chasm and Rob enthuses about having him play a solo on the song. “It’s awesome. He’s such a nice guy, a guiding light for just how to a guitar player, really, because that’s just his life, his lifestyle in a way, really inspiring to see his the way that he approaches something like that. He was in town one day, came by the practice space studio that we have, brought his pedal board and just laid down a disgusting solo in a matter of minutes. Super smooth, and really fun to work with.”
With Burden having been recorded a while ago now, talk turned to new material from REZN as Rob reveals. “We’re writing right now. We definitely are always keeping ideas fresh whenever we have a moment. I don’t know when the next album will be out, but we’re in the early stages of just throwing a bunch of stuff out there and letting the ideas sit. We’ll probably revisit some stuff later this year.”
With REZN about to head out on tour with PALLBEARER, Rob is very excited about heading out in the road with them. “Oh, I’m very excited, that is definitely a band that we have looked up to in terms of sound, but also have always wanted to do something with them. I’m just stoked to be involved with their record release and I feel like it’s a pretty nice pairing, anyone in the audience will have a nice blend of sounds that they can get between both of us.”
With REZN taking the songs from Burden out on the road, we ask Rob about the possibility of playing the whole album in full. “I think so. It’s funny you say that because just the other day, we were thinking about a way to do that. It would be really fun to do, like, a night where we perform Solace, and then a night where we perform Burden. I think that would be really awesome.”
As well as touring with PALLBEARER, REZN are heading over to the UK and Europe for the first time with RUSSIAN CIRCLES and Rob is thoroughly excited about that tour as well and explained why getting over here is so important to him and the band. “That’s definitely why we more or less started the band. To get out there and travel, meet some cool people and play music live. It’s huge that we’re going out with RUSSIAN CIRCLES for our first time in the UK and Europe! I’m looking forward to it!”
We end the chat by enquiring about the possibility of Mike from RUSSIAN CIRCLES joining REZN for Chasm live onstage whilst they are over here and may have given him an idea for the upcoming live shows! “God, I didn’t think about that. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that! I’ll have to ask him. No guarantees, but that’d be fun!”
With that great discussion with Rob over, the next thing you can do to get the full REZN experience is to listen to Solace and Burden in full back to back and revel in their combined glory and then do not miss them when they tour in November to get that experience live.
Burden is out now via Sargent House.
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