REZN Map the Contours of ‘Cycles in the Infinite Dream’

The sixth full-length from Chicago’s REZN arrives with a clear sense of internal stakes. Cycles in the Infinite Dream, out July 24 via Sargent House, isn’t a comfortable retread. Across nine tracks, the band pushes further into what they’ve long called “doomgaze”—a dense, melodic compression of heavy riffs and dream-state atmosphere. The result is an album less concerned with sprawl than with concision, a quality that distinguishes it from their earlier work.

Bassist Phil Cangelosi describes the opener “Rites of Passage” as an exercise in relentless forward motion: “We really were trying to make this song relentless, riff heavy, and with very little room to breathe between each part.” That synchronization of instruments toward a fat, unified sound became a guiding principle. It’s a record that often prioritizes impact over indulgence.

The album’s first single, “Cloudfall,” works as a mission statement. Cangelosi explains it “pretty much encapsulates what we are trying to do with this record—it’s both driving, ethereal, and has a super catchy hook.” The band challenged themselves to boil ideas down to core elements, a contrast to previous writing processes. Elsewhere, the tracks reveal their evolution through detailed reworking. “Transients,” a song Cangelosi initially wanted to cut entirely, only found its footing two weeks before recording when guitarist Rob McWilliams contributed the intro riff that became its focal point.

Lyrically and sonically, the record returns to the imagery of trees—an embedded concept that surfaces most directly on “Aerial Birth.” McWilliams likens the track to “laying on the ground under a tall tree canopy watching the worlds above,” with weightless verses giving way to heavy, grounded choruses. That tension between the ethereal and the crushing appears throughout the album, peaking at its midpoint with “Devotion,” an orchestrated interlude that peels back the layers to reveal a delicate center and includes a slow-dissolving field recording of crunching texture.

The album is available for preorder now on vinyl, CD, and digital.