Cynic started out as a death metal band in 1987 and over the next several years sent out five demos until they finally in 1993 released their first full length album,
Focus. As they found more and more influences in genres such as jazz and fusion instead of only contemporary death metal bands, they started to include bands such as
Watchtower,
Frank Zappa,
Chick Corea and
Allan Holdsworth as inspiration. In the end,
Focus is a mix of all those influences and then again a completely different animal. Unfortunately, after some touring in both
Europe and the states,
Cynic decided to disband, due to the usual musical differences. So
Focus also turned out to be the band's last album.
When trying to describe the feeling on
Focus we are clearly dealing with metal, but also adjectives such as atmospheric, dreaming, spacey, robotic, dreaming, transcending and hypnotizing come to mind. I'll label it progressive metal, though there are influences from many other genres. From the first track,
The Veil of Maya, we are introduced to the special sound of
Cynic.
We have distorted guitars playing melodies and rhythm figures often on the high strings and bass works that go from laying solid and extremely tight groundwork to atmospheric jazz figures. The drums have solid double bass drumming going to jazz inspired very non-4/4 rythm stuff. Generally the rhythm feeling is just as fucked up as anything
Watchtower or
Dream Theater have ever made, yet with a solid feeling to it, especially coming from the bass. The two guitarists often use clean guitars and even guitar synths to obtain the spacey and jazzy sound. Though most bands today have put away the guitar synth,
Cynic does amazingly well with this instrument, adding very much to their sound. The solos fit very nicely with the rest of the music. Played with virtuosity, they fit very well with the rest of the music, often with jazz touches but still with the metal sound.
One thing on
Focus that stands out from everything else is the vocals.
We have have two different vocal styles here, the death metal growls that are quite high-pitched, higher than typical death metal growls but not black metal screams either. I think that even people who normally don't like the death metal vocal style should give this album a chance. These vocals don't take up much space and they are also low in the mix. I like them but I know that not everybody else do, especially not people in the progressive metal genre. The vocals that really stand out here, are the robotic processed clean vocals. I don't know how they did it, but the result is a very robotic vocal sound but still in a musical way. I guess it's a matter of taste if you like it or not but for me they fit perfectly with the music. The lyrics are also not your typical death metal lyrics but held more in a philosophical style.
The bass work merits a special note.
Shawn Malone is without question one of the best bassists I have ever heard. Using instruments such as fretless bass and Chapman Stick, his fluent playing is a big part of the sound of
Cynic. Listen to the intro bass riff on
Sentiment to see how tight and a simple riff can be played, still played with an amazing feeling. The only other bass player I can think of in this class would be
Steve DiGiorgio. Hats off for
Shawn Malone. His solo project
Gordian Knot is also worth listening to.
Considering that
Focus was recorded in 1993 and not with that much money available, the sound is pretty good. Comparing with what can be done today, there isn't that much deep bass and the album production is pretty low on volume but apart from that, the instruments stand clear in the mix, something that can not have been an easy task to do, considering all the things that happen at the same time.
When looking at the massive talent gathered here, it is no wonder that the different members have participated in many different projects. Especially worth noting here is
Death, where
Chuck Schuldiner asked guitarist
Paul Masvidal and drummer
Sean Reinert to play on
Human.
I guess that all music fanatics have a few cds in their collection that they would describe as just different from the rest, milestones, music that changes the way you look at music itself, works of art where you can just feel that the musicians were truly inspired. I see a difference here between music that is solid work and music where the musicians have taken a chance and tried to go completely new ways into uncharted territories. For me, other albums in this category include:
Dream Theater - Images and Words,
Payne's Gray - Kadath Decoded and not that many others.
Cynic - Focus is part of this family. Even today, 12 years after it's release it can still give musicians and music lovers something. There is just one word that can be used here: Masterpiece. Nothing less.
Written by
Tajs Friday, May 6, 2005
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