Cynic - Focus

Wherever There Is Other There Is Fear

#136) Cynic - Focus (1993/2004)

 1. Veil of Maya
 2. Celestial Voyage
 3. The Eagle Nature
 4. Sentiment
 5. I'm But a Wave To...
 6. Uroboric Forms
 7. Textures
 8. How Could I
 9. Veil of Maya (2004 Remix)
 10. I'm But a Wave To... (2004 Remix)
 11. How Could I (2004 Remix)
 12. Cosmos
 13. The Circle's Gone
 14. Endless Endeavors

Cynic's 1st full length is an awesome combination of death metal, prog rock and jazz fusion. this is sorta the early 90s version of Between the Buried and Me but with a lot less ADD. some of the songs get a little too world/new age-y for me but it's still an amazing record. 
the 2004 re-issue features remastered versions of the original 8 track album along with 6 bonus songs. 9 - 11 are all remixes of tracks (the 3 best in my opinion) from the album. to be honest i didn't listen to the tracks back to back or try to compare them closely but i didn't really notice any huge differences. maybe a little more synth. tracks 12 - 14 are from the Portal demos which, at the time, hadn't gotten an official release, but more on those later.
while the bonus tracks aren't really anything special that doesn't change the fact that this is an amazing album that was truly groundbreaking at the time of its release.