Artist: CYNIC
Album: FOCUS (CD)

Release date: 1993
EAN/UPS: 16861916923
Media type: CD

Cynic is a progressive/technical death metal band from Miami, Florida, USA that was founded in 1987 and dissolved in 1994. Their only release, except four demos, was the album Focus from 1993 (see 1993 in music), a groundbreaking album that combined death metal, jazz fusion, New Age, thrash metal and electronica.

After years of being hailed as promising in Florida's death metal scene, Cynic recorded Focus. The result was an album combining their love of death metal with other influences, notably fusion jazz. Instead of choosing the brutal and hard-hitting approach to metal like most of their contemporaries, Focus takes an experimental stance to music instead.

Although being often dubbed progressive metal, the musical approach on Focus has arguably even more in common with jazz than it has with the progressive metal or progressive rock movements, leading some to coin the term "jazz metal" to describe the music. Elements of both can be found: progressive rock/metal is reflected in some song structures and occasional odd-time meters, while jazz influences are evident in some harmonic and rhythmic phenomena. The songs alter between harsh death metal parts and more serene, smoother passages. In general, the parts flow smoothly into each other instead of making abrupt, sudden transitions. In addition to being rather complex rhythmically, the songs also feature an advanced approach to harmony, as far as heavy metal music is considered. Melodically the album is not remarkably strong, however: vocal melodies are mostly very simple and linear, leaving a lot of melodic space for the guitars and even bass instead.

The most distinct feature on the album is the use of two types of main vocals, almost equally prominent. In a traditional death metal vein, the album features a hoarse, guttural, growling voice - death grunts - courtesy of guesting singer Tony Teegarden. Lead singer Paul Masvidal was in danger of losing his voice at the time and thus did not perform the growling vocals himself. The other main type of vocal output is Masvidal singing through a vocoder-type effect, resulting in a synthesized voice with a robotic quality (somewhat reminiscent of the "Transformers" characters).

TRACKLIST:

1 "Veil of Maya" – 5:23
2 "Celestial Voyage" – 3:40
3 "The Eagle Nature" – 3:30
4 "Sentiment" – 4:23
5 "I'm But a Wave to..." – 5:30
6 "Uroboric Forms" – 3:32
7 "Textures" – 4:42
8 "How Could I?" – 5:29

The original 1993 release has 8 tracks with a total runtime of 36:14.

All music written by Cynic, all lyrics by Paul Masvidal.

LINE-UP:

Paul Masvidal - guitar, guitar synthesizer, vocals
Jason Gobel - guitar, guitar synthesizer
Sean Malone - bass, Chapman stick (Cynic tracks only)
Sean Reinert - drums, percussion, keyboards

Also featured::
Tony Teegarden - vocals
Sonia Otey - vocals
Steve Gruden - vocals