The legendary demo recordings of Florida’s most influential progressive death metal band CYNIC are being released as an official release on CD.
6 panel digipak + 12 page booklet.
The lyrics for tracks 1 and 2 (and 14/15, the alternative takes of same songs) do not match since the demo has the early versions with more text than what is written in the booklet. Those lyrics are taken from the later album version. Also, the first 2 verses of track 10 is written twice in booklet and title misspelled Agitating Afliction over the lyrics.
Tracks 1-3 taken from “Demo 1991”
Tracks 4-6 taken from “Demo 1990”
Tracks 7-10 taken from “Reflections of a Dying World” demo '89
Tracks 11-13 taken from “Demo 1988”
Tracks 14-15 Brian Deneffe session - audition tape 1991 (previously unreleased)
All material was recorded prior to the band’s 1993 milestone “Focus” and shows their development from a thrash band to progressive death metal in astonishing fashion. Featuring impressive artwork by Manuel Tinnemans (The Devil’s Blood, Bölzer) as well as rare photos, flyers and detailed liner notes, “Uroboric Forms – The Complete Demo Recordings” is a must for every fan into the legendary Florida scene of the late 80’s/early 90’s.
All tracks were carefully remastered and mastered for vinyl by Patrick W. Engel (Iced Earth, Dissection, Tiamat etc.) and as special treat this 56 minutes long collection includes two previously unreleased tracks from a ’91 vocal audition with Viogression singer Brian DeNeffe.
“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.”
Sample:
Cynic - Pleading for Preservation
