CYNIC - Focus

I don’t think I should sing the praises to music piracy, but in some cases reality cannot be ignored. In 1993 I acquired, via the occult ways we are all familiar with, the first and in fact only album of CYNIC - "Focus". At the time I know nothing of the precedents from two of the band members – guitarist-vocal Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert were included in 1991 in DEATH by the legendary Chuck Schuldiner to take part in the creation of a super-album, "Human". And perhaps it is better I knew nothing about this band, because I had the opportunity to have this great discovery myself, a thing that happens a few but precious times in a lifetime of a music lover.

I can’t help myself remembering the feeling I had when I listened to CYNIC – that I belonged to an elite of privileged people that were privy to a never seen before kind of music. Doubtlessly, the Americans brought to surface the most coherent and influential manner of combining brutal metal with progressive overtones with jazz in an experimental way. Innovative vocals (with screaming but also celestial tones with plenty of synthesis), metallic riffs and rhythms – with outworldly technique – dressed in jazz clothes, and texts of an unrepeatable strangeness gave birth to a unique and intricate product, while at no point suffocating with its complexity. Everything flows naturally with no screeches.

What is most remarkable about "Focus" though is how fresh it remains to this day, 11 years after its release. Maybe this is before everything that has happened since 1993 in this area of music has proven that the imaginative eccentricity of CYNIC could only be an singular project that has not been matched yet. All we can do is watch the five former “cynics” in other projects - GORDIAN KNOT, AGHORA or SPIRAL ARCHITECT – but none of them goes anywhere near the sheer spectacle of "Focus".

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