Cynic - Carbon-Based Anatomy

I Could Be Eternity

#147) Cynic - Carbon-Based Anatomy (2011)

 1. Amidst the Coals
 2. Carbon-Based Anatomy
 3. Bija!
 4. Box Up My Bones
 5. Elves Beam Out
 6. Hieroglyph


on first listen i was pretty disappointed with this album. 3 of the tracks (Amidst the Coals, Bija! and Hieroglyph)  are "worldy" instrumentals, the other 3 tracks find Cynic once again removing the metal from their sound. the songs here are more like the re-imaginings found on Re-Traced. so like i said, first listen i was disappointed. to me half the album was bullshit filler and the 3 real songs weren't metal. then i listened to the album a couple more times and i really fucking dig it. i'm still not crazy about the instrumental tracks but the 3 "songs" are amazing. Masdival's voice sounds great and though there isn't as much proggery going on the songs still sound rad. while i hope they bring back the metal for future albums i wouldn't be horribly disappointed if this record represents the new sound of Cynic.

Cynic - Traced In Air & Re-Traced

Are You Expected Here?

#141a) Cynic - Traced In Air (2008)

 1. Nunc Fluens
 2. The Space For This
 3. Evolutionary Sleeper
 4. Integral Birth
 5. The Unknown Guest
 6. Adam's Murmur
 7. King of Those Who Know
 8. Nunc Stans

141b) Re-Traced (2010)

 1. Space
 2. Evolutionary
 3. King
 4. Integral
 5. Wheels Within Wheels

Cynic's 2nd album came out 15 years after their debut, Focus. thankfully it sounds nothing like the Portal Tapes. it's pretty much what you'd expect their 2nd album to sound like. it's a little less world/fusion-y and a little more progressive. for the most part they also got rid of the vocoder vocals, with Paul Masvidal doing a more natural high pitched falsetto thing. i really dug this album. it has a great flow, the vocals sound great and there are tons of great riffs. glad they went back to metal.

Re-Traced is 4 "re-interpretations" of tracks off Traced (tracks 1 - 4) and 1 new song.
they weren't kidding when they called them re-interpretations. they're very different, not only from how they originally sounded but from the Cynic sound in general.  i don't really know what genre they fall into. despite the fact that i'm unsure of how to classify this i really enjoyed it. 
Wheels Within Wheels goes back to the more metal sound and is a pretty cool track. it feels a little out of place after the other tracks but that's a pretty minor complaint.

overall i thought this was a great ep. if you dug Traced i'd definitely recommend checking this out.

Cynic - The Portal Tapes

#138) Cynic - The Portal Tapes (1994/95/2012)

 1. Endless Endeavors
 2. Karma's Plight
 3. Circle
 4. Costumed In Grace
 5. Cosmos
 6. Crawl Above
 7. Mirror Child
 8. Road To You
 9. Belong
 10. Not the Same

ugh, what the fuck is this? besides being terrible it's also not technically a Cynic album which is misleading and pisses me off, although i probably should've done my research before buying the album but whatever.

so, brief history : a year after Cynic released their landmark debut Focus they broke up while working on their follow up and weren't seen again until they released Traced In Air in 2008 (more on that album soon.) now i was lead to believe that this record was a "lost" demo recording of what was to be their 2nd album. unfortunately for me that's not quite the case. what happened after Cynic broke up was members Paul Masvidal (guitars, vocals), Jason Gobel (guitars) and Sean Reinert (drums, keyboards) formed a new project called Portal. Portal is basically Cynic with all the cool metal parts removed so all you have left is the new agey bullshit, but now it has female vocals. it's ridiculously cheesy but not in an entertaining way. they recorded this in '94 and '95 but nothing ever materialized (outside of some bootlegs) until now. what a fucking treat. now i don't know if this is the sound they were going for on their 2nd album or if this is just the sound they decided on for Portal but either way it's awful.  but this is not my thing at all.

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.