Time for another edition of The Steve and Keefy Power Hour! Senior Editor Steve Tovey joins Chief Editor Keefy, recapping March 2023 Rock and Metal Releases and previewing April’s essential new heavy music! Two white guys and music nerds pontificate on the music you love. Also, will we have new music soon from Ghost, Slipknot, Foo Fighters, and Iron Maiden? Shoutout to our amazing team of reviewers worldwide. Also, also, RIP Mat Davies as always. Hosted by Ojaay!
Though hailing from Chicago, Illinois, the doom metal of Rezn displays a touch of East-Asian mysticism about it, on Solace – the band’s self-released fourth full-length. Slow-to-mid-paced, hypnotic riffing goes from nimble and floating to heavy and crushing (and back again) all fluidly and with an altogether gorgeous production that makes this metal album akin to some exotic sweet that still delivers satisfying, crushing heaviness.
Every decade has its own set of trends that define it. It normally takes hindsight to see what will make a particular decade stand out but 2020 has already made a horrifyingly immediate distinction for itself. A pandemic-induced alteration of the scene itself has resulted in delayed releases, canceled tours, musicians at near equal ratios of inspiration and burnout, Zoom as a primary means of communication, and livestreams taking the place of proper concerts. All things considered, I am glad that a top albums list could still be made with a multitude of strong candidates. It’s been a shitty year with the light at the end of the tunnel still out of sight, but we still got tunes.
After a few out-of-genre collaborations with Lume and Catchechism, REZN’s third proper album returns to their signature Electric Wizard meets Elder on Quaaludes style. Chaotic Divine (Off The Record Label) is right in line with its predecessors, for the most part, pairing the sprawling length of 2017’s Let It Burn with the broadened atmospherics and instrumentation of 2018’s Calm Black Water. However, the heightened Ambient and Post Rock influences have resulted in what is easily their most ambitious effort so far.
