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Sunday Old School: Cynic

It's funny how a band who releases one album can create such a legacy and a clamouring for more. The Sex Pistols are probably the best example of this, as their only album, "Never Mind the Bollocks," revolutionised rock music and young politics for decades, yet they never recorded a second album of new material. Today we look at Cynic, who, in their initial run, released only one album, "Focus," before breaking up, though thankfully returned and released new music twelve years later.

The band was put together by guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert and the next year recorded their first demo, simply called the "'88 Demo," which featured Mark van Erp on bass and vocalist Jack Kelly, who parted company with the group soon after, with Masvidal taking over the singer position. Cynic also added a second guitarist, Jason Gobel to the lineup and the next year recorded a new demo, "Reflections of a Dying World," which was their last recording before bringing in Tony Choy on bass. This incarnation of the band recorded two more demos, before inking their first record deal with Roadrunner Records.

The recording of their first album was delayed by some time as Reinert and Masvidal were recruited to join Death and took part in recording the "Human" album, as well as the supporting tour which followed. The trek was marred by financial difficulties, which resulted in the pair's equipment being held by a British promoter for six months, during which time Tony Choy left the group to join another respected technical death metal band, Atheist. In his place came Sean Malone, but the band were dealt yet another blow on the day the recording of their debut was scheduled to take place, after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida, destroying Gobel's house (in addition to many others) in the process.

In 1993, Cynic finally had some material released, when their song, "Veil of Maya" was included on the EP, "The Breed Beyond," which also featured the likes of Fear Factory and Pestilence, before their debut album, "Focus," was finally released on September 14th of that year. It proved to be worth the wait, being hailed then and today as one of the greatest technical death metal albums to have ever been recorded, though the heaviest death growls were actually performed by Tony Teegarden. It was very jazz orientated, leading some to label them as "jazz metal," a term now in more common usage. The record was also fascinating in terms of lyrical content too, with subjects focusing mostly on spiritually and featuring a passage from a Paramahansa Yogananda prayer, as well as "Veil of Maya" taking it's title from a poem by Irish writer, George William Russell.

Unfortunately, disagreements about music and other issues forced Cynic to call it a day, abandoning their work on a second album, but members of the band continued to work together on a number of projects, perhaps most notably Reinert and Masvidal's band, Æon Spoke, who released two albums in the 2000s. Despite their ongoing work together, the calls were loud and constant for Cynic to be brought back by metal fans eager to hear more of the intelligent metal they'd only caught a glimpse of before.

Pleas and prayers were answered when in 2006, Masvidal confirmed that Cynic would be returning to the stage the next year, where they took part in some of the biggest metal festivals in Europe, during which they performed a new song, "Evolutionary Sleeper," as well as covering "Meeting of the Spirits" by Mahavishnu Orchestra and performing material from, "Focus." After a long wait, the band recorded and released a second album, "Traced In Air," fifteen years after their debut. It was a more progressive metal affair and received many very positive reviews from the press, as well returning to the philosophical lyrics and harking back to their first album with the cover artwork, which featured a beautiful design resembling that of "Focus."

Cynic promoted the album immediately by heading out on the road as the main support act for Opeth in Europe, before a North American jaunt with Meshuggah and The Faceless took place, followed by another tour supporting Dragonforce. After these shows, Cynic did something a little different and recorded the EP, "Re-Traced," which featured new versions of four songs which appeared on "Traced In Air," as well as a new track, "Wheels Within Wheels." They promoted the release by embarking on their first headlining tour of North America, where they were joined by Intronaut and Dysrhythmia and performed "Focus" in its entirety. A year later, with Sean Malone once again on bass, Cynic released another EP, "Carbon Based Anatomy," which contained previously unheard songs, though the title track was a reworking of the Æon Spoke song, "Homosapien," as well a compilation of post "Focus" demos entitled, "The Portal Tapes" through Season of Mist Records.

The trio returned to the studio once more in 2013 to work on a third album, which surfaced the next year under the title, "Kindly Bent to Free Us." Though it received the traditional positive response from critics, it was somewhat controversial for featuring less metal on the record and being more of a progressive rock album, which didn't impress every fan. They promoted the album by announcing shows in Japan and Europe but immediately after the Japanese tour ended, Reinert made the announcement that Cynic would be disbanding once again, due to a complete erosion in relationships, but only a day later, Masvidal contradicted him by saying it was the first he'd heard of the split and that Cynic would be continuing, while Reinert claims the guitarist has no legal basis to continue using the moniker.

Sadly, it looks as though this revered giant of progressive and technical metal will be heading into a dispute along the lines of Gorgoroth, Immortal and Ratt, with a nasty argument over ownership looming. Whatever the case, the members of Cynic can look at their catalogue with great pride, safe in the knowledge that they will always be hailed as a great band in the history of metal music.

Cynic - "Veil of Maya"

Cynic - "How Could I?"

Cynic - "Textures"

Cynic - "Integral Birth"

Cynic - "Adam's Murmur"

Cynic - "The Unknown Guest"

Cynic - "Kindly Bent to Free Us"

Cynic - "Holy Fallout"