Cynic’s 1993 album Focus is another one of those albums I bought based on the reviews in the magazine Metal Maniacs.
At the time, I listened to it quite a bit, but I don’t think I appreciated it for what it was. But hey, I was 16. My interests back then was the hard-hitting tunes of Pantera and Megadeth and I had not developed quite the patience for music you have to sit down and really listen to in order to appreciate. Cynic, whose style fused metal, jazz and synthesizers, is one of those bands that require that patience.
So, 25 years after I bought it, I came back to Focus to see if it was like I remembered, better than I remembered or much worse.
The answer is the second.
In some ways, they’re much like their Florida contemporaries Atheist, who released their album Elements a few weeks before Focus. Elements was an OK album, but Focus is a great album.
The thing that will grab the listener’s attention first on Focus is guitarist Paul Masvidal’s vocals. Masvidal sings through a vocoder-type effect, which creates a rather robotic-sounding synthesized voice. It’s not an effect that has aged well, much like you see with…
