01	Veil Of Maya						05:23
	02	Celestial Voyage						03:40
	03	The Eagle Nature						03:30
	04	Sentiment						04:23
	05	I'm But A Wave To...						05:30
	06	Uroboric Forms						03:32
	07	Textures						04:42
	08	How Could I						05:29

CYNIC - Focus (1993)

All Songs (c) 1993 RoadRunner Records
(music: Cynic / lyrics: Paul Masvidal)

Paul Masvidal - Guitar, Vocals
Jason Gobel - Guitar
Sean Malone - Bass
Sean Reinert - Drums



BAND MEMBERS

12.14.2002

Paul Masvidal

Paul now lives in Los Angeles, CA where he and Sean Reinert have formed their new band Aeon Spoke who have currently been playing in the L.A. area and are gaining quite a following. They have already released two demos on CD and are expecting a major record deal soon. Paul has a home studio in L.A. where he has been producing various records for various artists. He has also been working quite often in writing and producing television soundtracks for stations such as The Discovery Channel and The Sci-Fi Channel and doing session guitars and some writing for That 70's Show and a few other sitcoms and commercials.


Sean Reinert

Sean Reinert currently lives in L.A. nearby Paul and works as an engineer at Capitol Records mastering. He has also been working quite often with Paul on various soundtrack projects. It should be noted that, through it all, Paul and Sean's primary focus is still Aeon Spoke and most of their energy is put into that.


Jason Gobel

Jason is now living in Oregon with his wife and two children where he has been working closely with Sean Malone.


Sean Malone

Currently Sean Malone lives in Oregon where he teaches Music Theory at the University of Oregon and continues to work on his solo project Gordian Knot which has already released one album (self-titled) in 2000 and featured appearances from Sean Reinert and Ron Jarzombek of WatchTower. The second Gordian Knot release entitled Emergent is currently in production and is slated to feature appearences from Paul, Jason and Sean Reinert.


Aruna Abrams

Aruna Abrams of Portal notoriety is also living close to Paul and Sean in L.A. where she is performing her own original music around town and recording. If you want to hear some of Aruna's great, inspirational solo material, check out her MP3 site below.
Aruna Abrams MP3 Site


* It should be noted that all of the ex-band members connected to Cynic and Portal are very happy in what they are doing now and have bright, shining futures ahead of them. Best of luck to you all...





A Brief History of Cynic

Compiled by Brian Meloon from various sources
Updated by Tim Spear & Jeff Litvak


Cynic was formed in November, 1987 by guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert. To finish up the lineup, Mark Van Erp (later of Monstrocity) was added on bass and a friend named Jack Kelly was added on vocals thus making Cynic a four-piece. This early incarnation of Cynic was focused on making only brutal death metal with primary influence taken from bands such as Venom, Possessed, Kreator and Destruction. It is this lineup that would later be featured on the release of their first, self-titled demo in 1988.
After Jack left in 1988, Paul took over vocal duties, Jason Gobel was added on guitar and and in 1989, they cut their second demo, entitled Reflections Of A Dying World, consisting of four songs. All of the songs on this demo were of the speed metal/thrash genre, with even some punk elements incorporated within. This lineup soon began touring the south Florida area and bootlegs exist of them as far back as May of 1988. Soon after, Mark left the band, Tony Choy was added on bass and in 1990, Cynic released their third demo (also self-titled). This helped to gain them a large following throughout southern and central Florida, as well as their constant touring and cameo appearances in the south Florida area. This new lineup would remain intact until at least 1991.

At this time, the bands' influences were already starting to change. While they were still listening to contemporaries like Atheist, and were still inspired by seeing how "sick" some bands would get to express themselves, their technical, musical and creative abilities were growing, and consequently, they began listening to more technical forms of music. Their primary influences soon included jazz and fusion, such as Chick Corea and Allan Holdsworth, but also bands such as WatchTower and Frank Zappa. This change in technical abilities had already made its way into their songs as the band took a great leap forward in musicianship for their second and third demos.

By the early part of 1991, Cynic had evolved into a progressive speed/death metal type band, although the band themselves didn't really consider themselves to be death metal. The music had the technicality of progressive speed metal, with the brutality and vocal qualities of death metal. They cut a fourth and final demo in 1991 (financed by RoadRunner Records) consisting of three tracks. Two of these tracks would, in a drastically different form, make it onto their debut album. In April of 1991, Paul and Sean played on the new Death record (at the time), Human, with Chuck Schuldiner and Steve DiGiorgio of Sadus. They described their relationship with Chuck as "very laid-back", and were able to help Chuck with the writing by giving him input, which had been missing on the earlier Death records. The result was a classic record, and Death even got some MTV airplay. At the same time, Tony Choy was filling in for the late Roger Patterson on Atheist's Unquestionable Presence, also a great album in its own right, and guesting on Pestilence's Testimony of the Ancients. Paul did some work on Master's On The Eighth Day, God Created Master, and Jason worked with Monstrocity, playing lead on their Imperial Doom album. All of this guest work helped to enlarge the fan base for Cynic, making them, according to RoadRunner Records, "...the most popular underground act to never record an album."

Cynic was planning to record their first full-length album on the RoadRunner label after doing the Death record, then tour with Death and come home briefly before going on tour again for their own record. For unknown reasons, this didn't happen and they went straight into the Death European tour for the rest of 1991. Their lack of touring the states lead to a decline in their apparent popularity, at least in the band's eyes...

Cynic was now scheduled to go into the studio in October of 1992 with Scott Burns to record their debut album. Unfortunately for everyone (especially us!!), Hurricane Andrew destroyed Jason's house which also housed the band's rehearsal facilities. Their plans to record were put on hold until March 1993. Incidentally, this also interrupted Chuck Schuldiner's plans for the next Death release, Individual Thought Patterns, for which Sean Reinert was his first choice as drummer. Chuck instead got ex-Dark Angel drummer Gene Hoglan to fill in. During this time, Cynic was working with ex-Viogression vocalist Brian DeNeffe. Also around this time, a track from Cynic was finally released on CD. "Uroboric Forms" appeared in demo form on the RoadRunner compilation At Death's Door II in 1992 with a note that Cynic's debut album would be released in May 1993.

May 1993 came and went and no album appeared. Tony Choy left the band to become Atheist's full time bass player and the band had to scramble to find a replacement. After going through numerous bass players (including Chris Kringel more than once), the replacement they finally settled on was Sean Malone, an employee of Morrisound Studios where the band had recorded their previous demos. After putting together the songs for the new record, they were finally able to record, and on September 14, 1993, Focus was finally released. With over two years since their last demo, Focus was a remarkable change from the style of any of their previous material, and quite different than anything else as well.

After the release of Focus, Cynic went on a European tour supporting Pestilence. By this time, they had added a fifth member again, lead singer/growler Tony Teegarden, who had actually sung the death vocals on Focus since Paul was in danger of losing his voice at the time. Tony also did the keyboard parts because Sean Reinert was too busy on drums to do them. Due to his schoolwork, Sean Malone could not tour with the band so Chris Kringel toured in his place. The tour was cut short, however, when Pestilence disbanded. Returning to the states in January 1994, Cynic did a few shows in the Florida area, playing the states for the first time in over two years.

Next, Cynic toured the States during the summer of 1994 supporting Cannibal Corpse. Their tour stretched over 3 months and covered most of the United States. During this time, the band parted ways with Tony and borrowed Dana Cosley (from a local Florida band called Demonomacy) to do the death vocals and the keyboards for the rest of the tour. At the end of the summer, Cynic had to back out of a scheduled appearance at the Milwaukee Metalfest, due to unfortunate circumstances with their record label, the details of which are still undisclosed.

After the tour, Cynic began work on a new album. Rumor had it that they were again working with ex-Viogression vocalist Brian DeNeffe. However, while working on their upcoming album, bassist Sean Malone left, citing those famous "creative differences". His split with the band was amicable, however, and he continues to work with Sean R., Paul and Jason to this day.

Sometime during the fall of 1994, while still supposedly working on the new album, Cynic disbanded. The members couldn't decide which direction the band should go in and ultimately decided to go their separate ways. The split was amicable and the members remain friends. Following the breakup of Cynic, however, a new musical concept was born and some of the members re-formed in Miami and created a new project named Portal. For more information on Portal and the continuation of this story, visit the PORTAL section of this website.