Focus (album)

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Focus
Focus cover
Studio album by Cynic
Released September 14, 1993
Recorded 1993
Genre Technical death metal
Length 36:14
Label Roadrunner Records
Producer(s) Scott Burns
Professional reviews
Cynic chronology
Focus
(1993)


Focus (1993, see 1993 in music) was the first album and the only official release by the US metal band Cynic. It is widely considered to be one of the defining albums of the jazz-influenced technical death metal genre.

Contents

[edit] Overview and musical approach

After years of being hailed as a promising newcomer from the proliferous death metal scene of Florida, Cynic collectively mustered its whole creative energy and musical skill to record Focus. The result was an album combining their longlasting love of death metal to other growing influences, notably those of fusion jazz. Instead of choosing the brutal and hard-hitting approach to metal like most of their contemporaries, Focus takes an experimental stance to music instead.

Although being often dubbed progressive metal, the musical approach on Focus has arguably even more in common with jazz than it has with the progressive metal or progressive rock movements, leading some to coin the term "jazz metal" to describe the music. Elements of both can be found: progressive rock/metal is reflected in some song structures and occasional odd-time meters, while jazz influences are evident in some harmonic and rhythmic phenomena.

The songs alter between harsh death metal parts and more serene, smoother passages. In general, the parts fluctuate and flow rather smoothly into each other instead of making abrupt, sudden transitions. In addition to being rather complex rhythmically, the songs also feature a remarkably advanced approach to harmony, as far as heavy metal music is considered. Melodically the album is not remarkably strong, however: vocal melodies are mostly very simple and linear, leaving a lot of melodic space for the guitars and even bass instead.

The most distinct feature on the album is the use of two types of main vocals, almost equally prominent. In a traditional death metal vein, the album features a hoarse, guttural, growling voice - death grunts - courtesy of guesting singer Tony Teegarden. Lead singer Paul Masvidal was in danger of losing his voice at the time and thus did not perform the growling vocals himself. The other main type of vocal output is Masvidal singing through a vocoder-type effect, resulting in a synthesized voice with a robotic quality (somewhat reminiscent of the "Transformers" characters). Like all vocoders, the effect used ignores the pitch of singer's voice completely and is triggered by a keyboard instead.

[edit] Individual players

All members were remarkably skilled players of their respective instruments despite their age (all four members were 23 years old during recording). Guitarist/vocalist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert had already cut their teeth back in 1991, when they joined Chuck Schuldiner's Death to record the seminal Human. Certain similarities can be heard between the two albums, although Focus only rarely reaches the aggression level of Human.

The guitar parts of Masvidal and Jason Gobel seamlessly intertwine to each other, bringing to mind such guitar duos as Television's Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, or Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew from King Crimson. Only rarely do both guitars play the same part simultaneously; most of the time both guitars have their distinct own parts that tie together to form a fabric of harmonies and melodies. True to the unwritten heavy metal code of conduct, both players get to play their hearts out in numerous guitar solos. Especially Masvidal's flowing, Allan Holdsworth-esque solos stand out with their free phrasing.

Masvidal and Gobel use very similar gear throughout the record. Both play a Steinberger brand electric guitar equipped with a Roland MIDI pickup and guitar synthesizer, and both use Crate amplification. Most of the synthesized sounds on the album are generated with these guitar synthesizers, not keyboards. The Steinberger guitars also feature a tremolo system which bends each string an equal amount, allowing the bending of full chord shapes in tune. A demonstration of this is heard in the very first guitar chord of "I'm But A Wave To...".

Sean Malone plays a Kubicki fretless bass nearly throughout the album. The fretless bass has a soft attack and a round, warm sound rather untypical to heavy metal, which usually prefers the punchier attack of fretted bass. This easily draws more comparisons to Death and the aforementioned Human album, which also featured fretless electric bass, played by Steve DiGiorgio. On some parts on Focus Malone plays a 12-string Chapman stick instead. Malone's bass lines do not generally follow either guitar part. His lines are often quite busy and create a throbbing rhythmical pulse that syncopates with Reinert's drumwork. He also delivers a rare bass solo on the instrumental track "Textures".

Sean Reinert's drum style meshes together elements from both heavy metal and jazz. He skilfully uses accents, fills and varied dynamics to keep the songs rhythmically vivid. He occasionally plays a 16th-note double bass drum beat to emphasize certain parts of songs, but does not play blast beat on the album. In addition to an acoustic drum kit, he also uses electronic drums on some songs. The introduction to "Sentiment" demonstrates Reinert playing a polymetric beat consisting of several different meters on top of each other.

[edit] Lyrical approach

The lyrics, written by Masvidal, are poetic, philosophically and spiritually laden texts that take on subjects such as perceiving the world as whole, distinguishing reality and illusion, concentration and meditation. Many of the songs incorporate themes, titles or excerpts from other works: "Veil of Maya" takes its title from a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem of the same name, while "Sentiment" quotes a prayer from Whispers to Eternity by Paramahansa Yogananda. Lots of influences from oriental mysticism and religions as well as some New Age themes are present. The whole lyrical perspective is positive, humane and humble, which are all rather untypical qualities in heavy metal texts.

[edit] Influences

As mentioned before, Focus certainly draws from remarkably different popular music styles: death metal, fusion jazz and progressive rock or progressive metal. Some groups and artists whose influence can clearly be heard from Cynic's music include the adventurous, "intelligent" death metal of Death; the interlocking twin-guitar work of King Crimson; the visceral jazz-rock fusion of Mahavishnu Orchestra and Allan Holdsworth; and previous fusers of jazz and metal such as Atheist and Watchtower.

Cynic itself has had a notable influence on some later groups. Echoes of Cynic's approach can be heard in the music of many later death metal groups such as Pestilence (especially their 1993 swansong Spheres), Martyr, Cryptopsy, Behold... the Arctopus and even Meshuggah, as well as some progressive metal groups such as Spiral Architect and Sceptic.

[edit] Track listing

The original 1993 release has 8 tracks with a total runtime of 36:14.

  1. "Veil of Maya" – 5:23
  2. "Celestial Voyage" – 3:40
  3. "The Eagle Nature" – 3:30
  4. "Sentiment" – 4:23
  5. "I'm But a Wave to..." – 5:30
  6. "Uroboric Forms" – 3:32
  7. "Textures" – 4:42
  8. "How Could I?" – 5:29

All music written by Cynic, all lyrics by Paul Masvidal.

[edit] Credits

Also featured:

  • Tony Teegarden - vocals
  • Sonia Otey - vocals
  • Steve Gruden - vocals

[edit] Remaster

In 2004 Roadrunner Records released a remastered version of Focus, which contained the original eight tracks and six bonus tracks. Three of these were remixed versions of Focus songs, while the three other songs are taken from the members' post-Cynic project Portal's eponymous demo.

  1. "Veil Of Maya" – 5:21
  2. "Celestial Voyage" – 3:37
  3. "The Eagle Nature" – 3:28
  4. "Sentiment" – 4:24
  5. "I'm But A Wave To..." – 5:28
  6. "Uroboric Forms" – 3:30
  7. "Textures" – 4:40
  8. "How Could I" – 5:28
  9. "Veil Of Maya (2004 Remix)" – 5:22
  10. "I'm But A Wave To... (2004 Remix)" – 5:21
  11. "How Could I (2004 Remix)" – 6:20
  12. Portal: "Cosmos" – 4:21
  13. Portal: "The Circle's Gone" – 5:20
  14. Portal: "Endless Endeavors" – 9:56

All Cynic songs written by Cynic. All Portal songs written by Portal.

Remixed tracks naturally feature the same lineup as the original release. Portal featured almost the same lineup as Cynic. Sean Malone was replaced by Chris Kringel and a fifth member, Aruna Abrams, joined on vocals and keyboards.

[edit] External links

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