Cynic - Beyond metal's Veil of Maya

The demo years

Paul Albert Masvidal has Puerto Rican roots but grew up near Miami, Florida, where he first studied classical guitar with the celebrated Cuban guitarist Carlos Molina and, years later, with jazz musician Dave Weissbrot, who also served as his first point of contact with Buddhist philosophy: from this brief introduction it's already clear he doesn't fit the stereotypical metalhead profile, and indeed his approach to the material would turn out to be among the most original and innovative in the entire history of the genre. Paul took an interest in the ancient practice of Kriyā Yoga, and became passionate about esotericism and meditation from a young age.

Music nonetheless held an important place in his life, so when he met Sean Reinert in 1984, Crypha was born, later evolving into Seaweed when Reid Hansen and Rod Segal also joined. They were just having fun, nothing more. Shortly after, Masvidal and Reinert decided to get serious and, left on their own again, founded Cynic in 1987; with a provisional lineup they recorded '88 Demo, barely 11 minutes of material devoted to a furious, still-chaotic thrash metal, with clear influences from Slayer but an amateurish, slapdash quality closer to punk-hardcore.

Reflections Of A Dying World (1989) is already something more evolved, adding to the thrash-metal template a few touches of originality, even if often in a naive and unfinished way, along with some death-metal shadings. The lineup now has one more guitarist than the first demo, and Paul Masvidal is now also on vocals, replacing one Jack Kelly. Bolstered by bassist Tony Choy (later also in Atheist and Pestilence), the third demo, Demo 1990, sounds like a further step forward, if only because it was recorded in a far more convincing way and is populated by a thrash metal that's convulsive, twisted and restless, as on "Lifeless Irony", but also by guitar solos that are ever sharper and more progressive ("Thinking Being", "Cruel Gentility"). Already from this third demo it's clear that it would be reductive to consider them simply a thrash or death-metal band, since their ambition was to push stylistic boundaries in every direction. Eventually Roadrunner signed them, which led to the production of Demo 1991, a devastating example of multiform death-metal, at once ferocious and intricate, bestial and mathematical. The progressive influences are clear, jazz touches surface, and on an instrumental level the grandeur of certain passages reaches a compositional standard far removed from the triviality of so much other heavy metal. Of the three tracks featured here, two would later be reused on the debut album. Only the closing "Pleading For Preservation" was left out, though its tail of guitar virtuosity would still be revisited and perfected in "How Could I?".

A new kind of death metal: the role in "Human" and the masterpiece Focus

Although everything seemed ready for an official debut, Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert entered metal history not as protagonists but as sidemen for Chuck Schuldiner, leader of Death, who in the early Nineties was busy transforming his band into something quite different from the adolescent, blood-soaked proposition of early albums "Scream Bloody Gore" (1987) and "Leprosy" (1988), records still steeped in gore and horror. The evolution had already begun with "Spiritual Healing" (1990), which opened up to social themes, but with the band's fourth album, "Human", Schuldiner's lyrics became more introspective, while the music underwent a further evolution: from the brutal sonic assault of before, they moved to decidedly more complex compositions, handled by a quartet of musicians of crystalline talent. Alongside leader Chuck Schuldiner on vocals and rhythm guitar, we find Masvidal on lead guitar, Reinert on drums, and the sensational Steve Di Giorgio on bass.

This wondrous quartet, despite their still-evident youth (the oldest being Schuldiner, at 24), wrote an album that transformed the very concept of metal extremism, charting a trajectory quite different from the speed-and-power-cubed approach pursued throughout the Eighties. "Human" stands as a milestone for the entire genre, and the fact that two founding members of Cynic took part in it only confirms the abilities of these two musicians, barely in their twenties.

In September 1993, Cynic's debut finally arrived in stores: Focus is a shock, something that blatantly set the band apart from the rest of the Florida death-metal scene (Morbid Angel, Obituary, Deicide, etc.). The instrumentation alone is atypical, with Masvidal playing guitar alongside Jason Gobel in a logic of constant interweaving and alternation, moreover using very similar setups that heighten the sense of an ongoing, dynamic dialogue between two practically identical voices. The two also play synth-guitar, one of the many elements foreign to extreme metal tradition employed on Focus. The rhythm section, handled by Sean Malone and Sean Reinert, is no less remarkable: the former uses an atypical fretless bass for this sonic territory, with an attack much softer and more refined than that chosen by his Florida peers, but he also brings in the 12-string Chapman Stick, an orchestra-in-an-instrument with endless possibilities; Reinert plays by balancing death metal and jazz, in an unprecedented kind of fusion, while not shying away from using electronic drums too. The real bone of contention, however, is the vocals: while keyboardist Tony Teegarden handles the album's various growls, Paul Masvidal chooses to use a vocoder that gives everything a robotic, alien, inhuman sound.

The lyrics are no longer conventional either, steeped in philosophy, mysticism and existential reflection. One of the eight tracks on the album is even entirely instrumental. Take for example the iconic opening track, "Veil Of Maya", which opens with these lines:

In Maya’s grip illusion transforms verity

Perceiving thus a delusive world of duality

Veil of Maya

Balance every joy with a grief

Dual scales of Maya

Earth’s unending law of polarity

Ahamkara

Veil of Maya

Essentially, Focus should be a Florida death-metal album, but in reality, on listening, one gets the impression that that was merely the starting point for a result that sounds ambitiously fusion and progressive. Metalheads were initially thrown off, and some promotional dates with Cannibal Corpse ended up demoralizing the band due to the lukewarm reception from audiences.

And yet, as Jeff Wagner also acknowledges in his essential book "Prog metal", Focus has over time become a classic of brain-metal, a towering inspiration for many bands for years to come. To understand its uniqueness, though, only listening can really help.

The aforementioned "Veil Of Maya", the opener, clearly comes from another dimension, an android death-metal hallucination that dissolves into fusion passages and closes with a poetic coda, an exquisitely refined prog-rock weave. "Celestial Voyage" continues alternating between brutal and ethereal, violent and dreamlike, in an unprecedented language also developed on "The Eagle Nature" (via its melodic mid-section tear), before "Sentiment" explores rhythmic complexity in greater depth. "Textures", a more overtly fusion-leaning instrumental, cements Cynic's prominent role in the history of prog-metal as well, a genre they helped rewrite along lines of cross-pollination and high technical skill. Across its 35 minutes, Focus still sounds, even decades later, like a visionary work, with few peers among its contemporaries.

A long hiatus and the reunion

The band's stability, however, proves very fragile, and work on a second studio album is interrupted, partly due to the rather lukewarm reception given to Focus by their contemporaries. The trio of Gobel, Masvidal and Reinert record a handful of tracks with bassist Chris Kringel and singer/keyboardist Aruna Abrams, later released in 2012 under the Cynic name as The Portal Tapes, named after the project that was never fully developed. Across these ten pieces, Cynic resurface with much less energy, still clearly influenced by fusion but with a drastic reduction of metal elements, following a pattern they would stick to throughout their long, stop-start career.

There are also numerous projects connected to Cynic's members: for instance, Reinert and Malone first take part in the sole, self-titled Anomaly album (1998) and then in the prog-fusion-metal of Aghora (active since 2000); Choy and Reinert contribute to "Collision" by C-187; Sean Malone also forms Gordian Knot, whose second album "Emergent" is the only other work where we can hear the Focus line-up in action. The band isn't officially active, but hopes for a reunion are kept alive by the individual members' frequent public presence, and by the fact that, in the meantime, the debut has become a cult album for metalheads who grew up in the Nineties. 

In 2006 the fans' dream comes true, and Cynic also return to the stage in 2007, armed with a brand-new track, "Evolutionary Sleeper". Only Masvidal and Reinert from Focus are present, while Chris Kringel joins on bass. Guitarist Gobel is replaced by David "Mavis" Senescu. All the growl vocals are pre-recorded for the live shows.

In 2008 the band finally moves toward a second album: Malone returns to the line-up, while guitarist Tymon Kruidenier (already of Exivious) joins, also handling the growl parts.

The long-awaited return: Traced In Air and Kindly Bent To Free Us

The great comeback is titled Traced In Air (2008) and, while it doesn't carry the impact of the debut, it's an album that lives up to the sky-high expectations built up over the years.

It opens with "Nunc Fluens", a tribal assault amid a jungle of sonic debris that, by its close, hints at that particular brand of fusion coined on Focus. "The Space For This", the first proper "song", shows a band that has scaled back the death-metal doses (and the alienating use of the vocoder) but remains complex, pyrotechnic and incredibly fluid in execution, a progressive machine unafraid to venture into both the melodic and the furious. It's a fitting occasion to pay tribute to the influence Cynic had on technical and extreme prog-metal, a subgenre they helped found alongside a handful of others.

"Evolutionary Sleeper", perhaps the track closest to Focus, is an intricate rhythmic piece that, from a hyperkinetic start, slowly turns into a kind of fusion ballad played by virtuosos who fear few comparisons. "The Unknown Guest", full of robotic voices, is split between swirling, at times even tribal, music and an ethereal vocal undercurrent: 16 years may have passed, but creativity is clearly still in no short supply.

The closer, "Nunc Stans", is one of the album's finest moments: menacing distorted guitars sit alongside a melancholic vocal line, shaping an atypical ballad that steers the band toward a future that's ever less brutal and ever more poetic, elegant and refined.

Plenty of others, of course, have worked - from the Nineties onward or already in the new millennium - toward a progressive evolution of death-metal, from Opeth to post-"Human" Death themselves, from the more recent Gojira to the historic Crimson, from the equally influential Atheist to the elusive maudlin of the Well, but Cynic's comeback is, while not revolutionary, good news nonetheless, and Traced In Air proves they still have something to say.

That their stylistic evolution is still alive and well is confirmed by Re-Traced (EP, 2010), which reworks tracks from the second album in a logic similar to a remix, adding the previously unreleased "Wheels Within Wheels". Overall, the more aggressive side is sacrificed to highlight the atmospheric dimension of the compositions, in a now-obvious drift away from metal, even at the cost of evoking relaxing New Age compositions.

A proper third album, however, is not just around the corner. First comes the EP Carbon-Based Anatomy (2011), split between three tracks of ambient and New Age music and three compositions of refined fusion, with tamed metal elements and the occasional Masvidal display of virtuosity ("Box Up My Bones"). The EP also establishes the three-piece line-up of Masvidal, Reinert and Malone, which will be retained for Kindly Bent To Free Us (2014), the long-awaited third album. This one is even more virtuosic and elegant, straddling fusion and progressive, with a pronounced melodic sensibility (right from the opening "True Hallucination Speak"), even with the occasional pop-rock hook ("The Lion's Roar", "Infinite Shapes") and some nods to the Seventies ("Kindly Bent To Free Us", "Moon Heart Sun Head"): from avant-garde to rearguard, in a highly refined revival that looks to jazz and to great instrumentalists such as Allan Holdsworth. Of the old fury, only a few traces remain ("Holy Fallout").

Cynic's evolution and transformation is an ongoing discovery for listeners, even if the uncharted ideas of their early days have given way to sophisticated reworkings, not without a touch of nostalgia. Alongside the band's core influences and signature touches, we now also find echoes of other bands full of remarkable instrumentalists (e.g. Dream Theater, with whom they've often shared the stage) and ambitious progsters in love with this subgenre's great history (from Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson in general to the more recent Haken).

The second breakup and the deaths of Reinert and Malone

In 2015, Cynic effectively break up again, although Masvidal and Reinert don't see eye to eye on the matter: according to the former, the band will continue to exist, even though the two can no longer work together. Indeed, Cynic do perform without Reinert, but activity is reduced to a bare minimum. Matt Lynch shows up as the new drummer on the single "Humanoid" (2018), but the whole story of the band takes an unexpected, bleak turn when, on January 24, 2020, Reinert dies at just 48, and, tragically, Malone also dies by suicide less than a year later: the Cynic we knew no longer exists.

Despite this, Paul Masvidal carries on and releases Ascension Codes (2021). It's more metal than the previous outing, and even though Masvidal is joined by Matt Lynch (drums) and Dave Mackay (bass/keyboards), it sounds like a record that expands on the experimental path laid out almost thirty years earlier by the masterpiece Focus (1993), representing the evolution of a discourse that the visionary guitarist now has to carry forward practically on his own.

Honestly, it has none of the disruptive force of an unrepeatable debut, nor will it do much to change the course of contemporary metal. What it can do, though, is pick back up a thread left hanging, one that Cynic have pursued across a career full of breaks and stylistic shifts, finding here a more accommodating chapter that slots easily into the narrative of their entire output.

It could also serve as a fixed point for a project that once burned with the ambition to point toward a distant, sci-fi future, but which never quite managed to reach it. At best, as happens here, it ends up sublimating that evocative image into a bodiless amalgam, like a soul that has shed the weight of the flesh and ascends, elusive as a vision, toward the sky.

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