FABULOUS DISASTER

“We weren’t ever thinking in terms of death metal or genre at all,” says Cynic frontman Paul Masvidal of seminal album Focus. “It was all about the music and the exploration of creativity and communication as an art form. Anger and rebellion were not the driving forces, musical freedom was!”

Masvidal and Cynic—then comprising of drummer Sean Reinert, guitarist Jason Gobel, and bassist Sean Malone—likely wouldn’t have released Focus as we know it today if it wasn’t for Hurricane Andrew. Striking South Florida in August 1992, the Category 5 hurricane nearly wiped out Miami-Dade County. With 25,000 homes lost—Gobel’s home disintegrated into pieces while the family huddled in their bathroom—Mother Nature proved merciless and indiscriminate. In effect, Focus is directly related to Hurricane Andrew and the time it afforded Cynic to re-craft their sound. While the rest of Florida picked up the pieces, Cynic transformed. Beauty and new light spawned out of chaos and destruction.

“Andrew forced a lot of people into an urgent, survival focused state,” Masvidal recalls. “When disaster strikes one must re-assess and start over. I’ve heard people say this when they are diagnosed with a terminal illness, often when it’s too late, and I know this firsthand; suffering becomes a grace. To wake up again and start anew. On a symbolic level, Andrew created an opportunity to push our musicianship and songwriting to another level. A lot of things went down that year and looking back, having essentially twelve more months to turn the songs inside out and write some new music, became a blessing. Had we made an album prior to that event, it would’ve been a completely different work. Focus wasn’t a masterpiece for me, but it did have an unorthodox freshness and originality that made it unlike anything out there when it was released. It was deviant in all the right ways and it rode the edges of our creative abilities at the time. And most importantly, it inspired a lot of other artists to make new work. I didn’t really know what the band was trying to say during the demo years, in terms of the entire scope, and that would include the artwork and lyrical message. The first three demos in particular, seemed to be driven by the spirit of teenage angst and sheer rebellion. Demo era Cynic was essentially an outlet for a bunch of restless and creative musical teenagers.”


CALM BEFORE THE STORM

See, when Cynic signed to Roadrunner Records to a seven-album deal in June 1992, they were effectively a full-on death metal act, spurred by the intrepid sounds and friendly backing of fellow Floridians Atheist—frontman Kelly Shaefer was an ardent fan and early mentor—and Death. There’s little doubt that the songs on Demo 1991, made primarily as a showcase for Roadrunner Records, were informed by but intended to take the genre beyond, however. “Uroboric Forms”, “The Eagle Nature”, and “Pleading for Preservation” were dazzling displays of high-energy, technically improbable death metal, the likes of which few could conceptually or physically match at the time. As young musicians, willing to learn and able to stretch boundaries, they also considered feedback from their peers—like Shaefer and Chuck Schuldiner—as well as industry heavyweights such as Roadrunner Records A&R man Monte Conner and journalist Borivoj Krgin.

"They turned into a whole new band by the time they recorded Focus," Monte recalls. "When I heard the mixes in progress, I realized I got way more than I had bargained for and that they had pioneered something completely new and unique. So much so in fact that the death metal world had no idea what to make of it. It is easy to claim everyone saw its greatness now, with over 20 years of hindsight in our back pockets, but that record was not a success upon release. It only became legendary many years later when metal fans finally caught up with it."


“We were essentially rock/metal kids who got deep into jazz, fusion, world and instrumental music,” Masvidal says. “[This] lent to songs that had a less than orthodox approach. I recall even around the time of recording the Roadrunner Records demo, that I was obsessing over the idea of a song not needing any obvious repetition at all, and treating songs more as a sonic experiments that deceptively used motifs without traditional songwriting sensibilities. When we signed to Roadrunner Records, I remember Monte and Borivoj caring tremendously about us, reinforcing the songwriting aspect behind the music, and urging us to focus more on repetition, choruses, memorability, etc.

Demo 1991 wasn’t entirely formed out of new ideas, new music and spiritual influences, and new experiences. There was precedent. Namely, the band’s third demo, aptly titled Demo 1990. Recorded at Morrisound Studios, a studio Cynic would call home up to Focus, the songs—“Lifeless Irony”, “Thinking Being”, and “Cruel Gentility”—had an aggressive edge. Like Possessed, Destruction, and Kreator amped up a notch by overweening youth and superb musical skill. In fact, it was the buzz leading up to Demo 1990 that had Shaefer so overjoyed he introduced Cynic not only to Krgin but also to the heads of Morrisound Studios. But inside Cynic, the group had changed. A mere year separates Demo 1990 from Reflections of a Dying World. It’s hard to believe it’s the same band.
“What happened was we got more serious as musicians,” asserts Masvidal. “Beyond having the aggression and the aesthetic that drove the early punk rock scene and the metal community—which was all about the energy and vibe—we started to become interested in the chops behind it. We had to up our musicality game and technique in order to be more articulate. We went through a phase where showing off chops was more important than the song itself. Thankfully, that didn’t last too long. Ultimately, we became better musicians because we had inspired teachers, eclectic ears, and as young, burgeoning musicians trying to find a voice, our diverse tastes helped to inform the work. When we were making [Death’s] Human in 1991, it seemed Reinert and I were listening to everything but metal.”


FULL SPEED AHEAD

Hard to believe, but when Reflections of a Dying World was made available to local shops and underground traders, the members of Cynic were a hair past 18 years. Then-bassist Mark van Erp (who went on to play on Monstrosity’s Imperial Doom along with Jason Gobel) was slightly older. While most teenagers of similar age were slinging burgers or tending gas stations as their first jobs, Cynic were busy writing vicious thrash metal, somewhere between the savageness of Sadus and Watchtower’s frantic, egg-headed tunes. It’s evident on songs like “Denaturalizing Leaders” and “A Life Astray” Cynic were as much into precision and clarity as they were expressing anger and discontent.

“It’s funny, if I were to retrace it, I could probably tell you what we were listening to on each demo, which was a lot of underground music” Masvidal says. “We were purging angst and what other feelings we had at the time. Cynic became our sanctuary. We put all of our neuroses, aggression, and pain into the music. Other kids with these kinds of issues that didn’t have an outlet, would end up acting out in more harmful ways, perhaps getting arrested for something meaningless like stealing a car, or worse. We’d spend time with our instruments, write a tune or drop acid to do some inner work. In many ways, the extreme art-form allowed us to process the confusion of early childhood. I don’t know if this behavior was conscious, as much as it was simply a necessity for sanity. We were also influenced by the thrash scene, along with hardcore, punk and crossover underground groups that were unorthodox or a bit more skillful on their instruments. Bands with punctuated arrangements, using precise rests, downbeats, unexpected twists and turns in their riffs. This is the kind of stuff that made us excited. The goal of being original along with maintaining a fierce aggression spoke to the anarchistic geek in us.”

But Cynic had to start from somewhere. The vector to Focus wasn’t accidental. Formed when they were in high school, the members of the band—Masvidal, Reinert, Van Erp, and vocalist Jack Kelly— quickly set out to do what every band did. Make a demo. Done completely DIY—Demo 1988 is a wonder of teenage ingenuity and tenacity. The ghoulish cover art was illustrated by a fellow classmate, whereas the studio in which the demo was recorded was found on a walk-by. Musically, it’s Cynic—a name inspired by Greek Cynics like Antisthenes,Diogenes ,Onesicritus, and Crates of Thebes—at their most primitive. “Once Misguided” and “Weak Reasoning” bear little resemblance to Demos 1990 or 1991, but there’s something remotely Cynic about the group’s early hardcore-informed rumblings.

“I vaguely remember the circumstances under which we recorded the ’88 demo,” smiles Masvidal. “What was interesting about that period is that we didn’t really know what the band sounded like until we finished recording the demo. We didn’t have the engineering chops for doing our own four-tracks then, especially drums. We would record songs live with a boom box, but you couldn’t hear musical details in that context. Studio demos allowed us to get a sense of what the group actually sounded like under a microscope and exposed how hard we would need to work to get things right. There were no tricks or shortcuts in those days. Technology wasn’t going to fix a poor performance. Your skills were exposed whether you liked it or not, and that’s what makes these demos special. They are frighteningly real. I also love how raw everything felt musically and even aesthetically. I remember, the excitement that came with needing artwork to package a demo. That was a big deal to me. In some ways, I miss the handmade, crafty side of the indie aesthetic we had in those days. Finding a printer, choosing paper and ink, designing flyers, and giving the group a visual language. Everything felt intimate, tactile and visceral. Just look at the early Cynic logo which I had originally hand-drawn in a junior high school notebook. It captures the spirit.”


TRUTH IN SHREDDING

Now that Cynic’s pre-Focus existence is in fully authorized view, it shows one distinctive attribute: perseverance. They weren’t connected locally to the Central Florida—cities like Orlando and Tampa—scene. They weren’t similar musically or aesthetically to the bands that were making waves in death metal, at home and abroad. Though they had guidance from Atheist and Death, they were outliers. Extreme in their own way, but deep down quite different. Yet, Cynic powered on. From demo to demo, to the invites to play in Death, Atheist, Monstrosity, Master, and Pestilence, the group eventually found their voice. In three short years, Cynic went from prodigious death metal understudies to progressive quasi-metal masterminds, whose album, Focus—then grossly misunderstood and mocked—continues to resonate greatly today.

“These demos are like sketches of young, aspiring artists,” Masvidal says. “Although I can hear in them, some fragment of my playing now. I recognize certain rhythmic components in the guitar phrasing and think “Oh, wow! I’m still doing that!” Over the course of a couple decades, that voice has become more refined, articulate, and precise. I’m sure some of the other guys would say the same thing. Hearing these demos is akin to looking at old pictures of yourself or reading historical diary entries and realizing you’re a different person now. Sometimes seeing those old pics or hearing this work can even feel embarrassing, as if they’re someone you don’t care to know anymore, but it’s who we were, and I’ve come to embrace how genuine the work actually is. There’s an earnestness in these recordings that’s particular to a space and time, and it will never happen again. We now have evidence exposing the roots of an artist’s journey and there’s nowhere to hide. That’s the beauty of it.”


- Chris Dick