Cynic
Focus

THE REVIEW

This is definitely the best album I have ever listened to, it's the band's only official release, coming out in '93; it has six years of work and rejected demos behind it and is followed by the dispersion of Cynic, dissolved into myriad parallel projects; and it is precisely this that consecrates it as a masterpiece, eliminating any possibility of being followed by another work of inferior quality or, worse, repetitive.

It is immense, definitely Progressive Death Metal, unmistakable are the very fast riffs, which flow regularly and uninterruptedly, but which allow you to savor their complexity; two guitars, often indistinguishable, slip into phrases that, listened to individually, could be defined as melodically and rhythmically opposite, but which together give life to a symphony of pure musical emotions, an impeccable and creative rhythm section with Reinert's drums that can also be electronic without losing feeling, a bassist, Shawn Malone, who knows how to sustain very tight rhythms, pounding on accents, as well as opening up into paradisiacal harmonic overlaps; who, even in the same piece, moves from the insistent staccato rhythm of a stick to the soft expressiveness of a fretless and bursts into breath-taking jazz solos.

Undoubtedly a work that would enrich even, and I dare say especially, those who are not metal enthusiasts.

[For the uninitiated: the stick is a large twelve-string instrument played by tapping the strings at the frets; the fretless is a bass without frets and with smooth strings, practically an electric double bass.]