Calm Black Water

Rezn are proof that you don't need to be particularly original to knock it out of the park. No twelve-tone electric bagpipes, no syncopated gravity blasts - Rezn just takes a simple concept and flawlessly sticks its execution. Doom and psychedelic rock are obviously bedfellows, but most bands don’t do it like Rezn. Your average psych doom/stoner band tends to dollop the psychedelia on like a condiment. It’s not at the core of the music, it’s just a flavour they sprinkle on in hopes you don’t notice they’re just the same boring fare as the next 100 small town stoner bands. If anything, Rezn is a psychedelic rock band when it comes down to it. They’ve just realized that doom riffs make for some excellent contrast to wandering clean sections.

This just might be the best psychedelic doom album to drop since Naam’s dimension-shattering debut album. While not quite as original as Naam, Rezn realizes that you can’t half ass the psych stuff. While they churn out lots of hypnotic churning doom plods, the clean wandering tones really make the album. The lush summery vibes are wonderful; I feel like I could spark one in the arboretum on a hot summer’s day and just jam out to this for eternity. Where the average band would just get carried away with the umpteenth uninspired wannabe-Sabbath riff, Rezn revel in tripped out atmosphere and don’t deviate from the tripped-out vibes for the heavy parts.

It’s the little details that really make Calm Black Water. Like any psych band worth their weight, they implement sitar to great effect. There are some nice touches with the percussion – a little tambourine here, some hand held drums there. The subtle effects of the synths do wonders for the overall vibes and they even throw in a bit of sax for good measure. The interplay between the spacey synth tones and the slinking bass riff in “Mirrored Mirage” is one of the best moments of the whole album. The production also deserves a mention – it has a very organic and warm feel and is perfectly suited to psychedelia

There’s not one thing about Calm Black Water I can point to and say that’s what makes it such a standout album. There’s nothing that new about mixing psychedelic rock and doom and Rezn don’t really deviate from the plot. They just execute the concept so well and the psychedelic atmosphere is so immersive. It feels like they painstakingly poured over every little detail. Song writing, riffs, atmosphere, production, additional instrumentation – everything is just exactly how it ought to be.