#11 - Cynic

In 1993, tech metal pioneers Cynic released their groundbreaking debut Focus, but it wasn't until five years later that I first heard them.  As with a lot of great music, my friend Chris first introduced me, and as with a lot of forward-thinking music, it took me a while to catch on.  But over the years, I've come to appreciate the album as one of the most important, innovative and influential offerings in the now long and (to me) illustrious history of the metal genre.

Cynic grew out of the burgeoning Florida death metal scene in the late 80's/early 90's which, thanks to them along with fellow bands Death and Atheist, was beginning to be enriched with progressive and jazz elements.  In fact, guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert appeared on Death's seminal album Human in 1991.  The band also features my favorite rhythm section of all time in drummer Reinert and bassist Sean Malone who, during Cynic's decade-long hiatus after the release of Focus, also appeared on Aghora's 2000 debut.

A lot of jazz influence can be heard in Cynic's music, with smoothly-phrased, unusually non-modal soloing over chord changes more directional and varied than is typical in metal, syncopated drumming and the warm fretless bass sound.  Also out of character for the Florida scene at the time, Focus featured vocorder-transposed vocals and clean soprano alongside and juxtaposed against the traditional death growls.

Here are two of my favorites from Focus, starting with the closer taken from the album: "How Could I".  It might be the most "metal" song on the album, but it contains plenty of interest.  The intro starts with synthesizer (I don't think it's actually a keyboard, but instead some kind of drum synth) playing a rhythmic pattern, adds a fretless bass counterpoint after a few bars, and then another guitar arpeggiated layer another handful of bars later, growing to the more aggressive and twisty verse at 0:53, which repeats at 1:39 before the chorus at 2:17.  After the chorus, a very jazzy solo break based on the intro opens up at 2:37 before a restatement of the back half of the verse at 2:58 and another chorus at 3:17 before the super cool solo/outro from 3:51 to the fade out.  That outro, to me, feels like an arrival, as though not only the song but the entire album has been building to that final moment of clarity.

And here is a live recording of the band in 2015, playing the opener, entitled "Veil of Maya", from that same album.  It's a terrific performance, but you'll notice that a lot of the backing tracks are piped in, now that the band has reduced in size to the three core members: Paul and the Seans.