REZN: Dream Warriors
Cycles In The Infinite Dream, the latest album from Chicago’s REZN sees the band’s majestic psychedelic doom dazzling once again, with their dreamlike soundscapes taking on a new meaning on this record. All delivered in a more direct fashion. We caught up with REZN guitarist/vocalist Rob McWilliams as the band are on tour in Europe to get the lowdown on the Cycles In The Infinite Dream and how the tour is going.
We begin with Rob enthusing about how the tour is going and who REZN have been sharing stages with. “We’re kind of doing our a little mix of shows, we just finished up some dates with UNCLE ACID AND THE DEADBEATS, we have the ALL THEM WITCHES shows coming up, and then a show with ELDER as well.”
Rob continues his enthusiasm of REZN being on the road by describing how the shows have unfolded. “The tour has been amazing. It’s a nice mix of headline shows, festivals, a couple of support shows, so it’s been nice to play a bunch of different sets and get a bunch of different energy from crowds that we wouldn’t normally play to. It’s always a really enthusiastic response from people, so it’s been great!”
Rob then describes how the new material from Cycles In The Infinite Dream has been received in a live situation. “It’s definitely more concise, and we’re trying to make it more like the distilled version, that essence of where we’re at as a band right now. We used to allow ourselves a lot of freedom with jammy, more spacey moments, and maybe condensed those moments into more impactful and more intentional things within the songs.” He continues, “our main goal with the record was just to give people as many different pathways sonically, to cover as much ground as we could with one single record, and it definitely ended up being faster tempo-wise and a little more aggressive and rhythmic.”
Talk then turns to the main themes of Cycles In The Infinite Dream. “We definitely always go for almost a psychological thriller type approach thematically. This time we went heavy on the dream narrative, so all the different types of ways that people experience dreams, whether they’re waking or sleeping or comatose, these dream realms.”
With REZN being on tour, Rob then reveals what the band have in rotation on their on the road mix. “We’ve been listening to the new BIG|BRAVE record, and it’s phenomenal. I always listen to krautrock like ASH RA TEMPEL on the road. It’s psychedelic, but kind of like road trip music. The new BOARDS OF CANADA was really fun!”
One of the biggest shows that REZN have played on this tour is the mighty Hellfest in France and Rob excitedly told of how the day went for the band. “That was insane. It was our first time, and people were warning us, in a good way, how crazy it was going to be. It was phenomenal, the crowd was super respectful and supportive. We played at 1pm and it started off pretty good, and then by the halfway point through our set, the entire area in front of our stage was full, and that energy was crucial. We had a great time.”
Speaking of festivals, on the run for their last album, 2024’s stellar Burden, REZN played a phenomenal show at Damnation Festival that year, as Rob reminisces. “That was a lot of fun. The production logistics that you have to navigate and make sure you’re doing okay, and then the turnaround time is super snappy, so it feels nerve wracking in the moment, but once you’re on stage, it’s like a slingshot into the sonic experience that you’re about to do, it was really fun, We thrive in the festival environment, for sure”
REZN will be back in the UK in February next year with ELDER, something that Rob is very much looking forward to. “It’s been a minute but we’re gonna get back to the UK. The ELDER guys are great, and they’re friends of ours, so the fact that we’re able to tour them, it’s just going to be a good time on the road, but also have a fanbase that overlaps, they kind of do their thing, we do our thing, and then we’re able to just kind of expand on each other’s sonic sentences so it’ll be really fun, and they’re always amazing live so it’ll be fun to watch those guys every day.”
Before that though, the band are on an extended run on home soil across the US. “We have that special album release tour. The album drops July 24 so after that, we hit the road East Coast with our friends in LUME from Michigan, and then LOCKSTEP, awesome guys from Nashville, Tennessee. We’ll hit the East Coast with them, and then take a little small break, and then do the West Coast as well. We’ll be hitting as much ground as we can cover in the US, and then yeah, just back back in the UK with ELDER, and hopefully adding some more Europe dates to that tour as well!”
Talk then returns to the new album and the music video for the track Cloudfall, as Rob enthuses about the cinematic nature of the video. “That was with our good friends Tom and Chris. They the video for our last release for Burden, and they also did Collapse, which was off Burden as well. This time we wanted to be like, here’s the prompts, go crazy, have fun with themes, they bring us a bigger idea of what the song means to them visually.”
Rob then describes the meaning behind the video. “We knew we wanted some aspects of the lyrics to come through in the video as well, so they did a good job of showcasing that with some kind of cursed moment during your day creates this lingering feeling when you’re going to sleep that manifests in multiple ways, whether it’s like a waking feedback loop of eternally waking up and being in a dream, and waking up and being in a dream, that sleep paralysis demon that so many people seem to have in different ways, but it’s this unique human experience that people just connect with in horrifying ways. They crushed it. I love their cinematic approach, it’s awesome!”
With this talk of a cinematic nature and how it fits the music of REZN perfectly, we end with Rob telling us how have band would be with scoring a movie. “That would be incredible. I can speak for all of us when we say that would be a goal of ours. I know that Spencer [Oullette, synthesizer/saxophone] went to school, for soundtracks for films, so I know that’s on his mind for sure!”
Cycles In The Infinite Dream is out now via Sargent House. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS131 here.
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