Artist

Cynic

Miami, United States

Cynic is a music group from Miami, United States. Their discography on Gatefold includes 8 records.

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Biography

Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert were sitting in Scott Burns’ room at Morrisound Recording before they were even old enough to buy beer legally. They were the hired guns on Death's Human, a session that essentially broke the brains of the Florida death metal scene by injecting jazz-fusion chops into Chuck Schuldiner’s carnage. When they finally got around to tracking Focus in '93, they didn't just play fast—they brought in Chapman Sticks, Vocoders, and an airy, Buddhist-adjacent philosophy that made the sweaty, long-haired crowds at the Milwaukee Metalfest look at them like they were from Neptune. Focus was a record that almost nobody understood in real-time. Roadrunner Records didn't know how to market a band that sounded like Mahavishnu Orchestra jamming with Atheist. The tour with Cannibal Corpse was a disaster because the kids wanted gore and Cynic gave them ambient soundscapes and headless guitars. They folded shortly after because the world wasn't ready for a metal band that cared more about John McLaughlin than Slayer, leaving behind a single, bizarre artifact that felt like it fell out of a time machine.

Bio from The Clerk

The Arc of Cynic

The pivots — what forced Cynic to reinvent.

The Morrisound Fusion Mutation
After the high-stakes session work on Death’s Human, the band entered Morrisound with producer Scott Burns to record Focus. They moved away from the thrash-heavy demos of the late '80s by incorporating Jason Gobel’s synth-guitar MIDI triggers and Tony Teegarden’s dual vocal approach. The result was a jarring contrast of death growls and robotic vocoders that redefined what a 'metal' production could sound like in 1993.
The Portal Hibernation
Following the commercial confusion of Focus, the core lineup shifted away from metal entirely to form the project Portal. This era saw them trading the remaining shreds of aggression for ethereal, pop-leaning structures and clean vocals, effectively scrubbing the 'death metal' tag from their identities. While the recordings didn't see a wide release for years, this period was the necessary palate cleanser that allowed the band to eventually return without the baggage of the Florida scene.
The Tracer Resurgence
The 2008 return with Traced in Air saw the late Sean Malone bringing his masterful fretless bass work back into the fold alongside Masvidal and Reinert. They stripped away the campy elements of the '90s and leaned into a polished, progressive rock sound that emphasized melody over technical showboating. It was a more mature, focused execution of the ideas they had been trying to communicate fifteen years prior, proving they weren't just a nostalgic fluke.

Influences

Mahavishnu Orchestra — Masvidal has cited John McLaughlin’s work as the blueprint for Cynic’s intricate, non-linear guitar interplay. You hear it in the hyper-fast, clean-toned staccato runs on 'Celestial Voyage' that mirror The Inner Mounting Flame.
Death — The band’s tenure as session players for Chuck Schuldiner provided the professional rigour and the platform to debut their technical style. The DNA of the Human sessions is all over the early Cynic demos, specifically the way Reinert approaches the kick drum patterns.
Weather Report — Sean Malone’s fretless bass approach was a direct homage to Jaco Pastorius. The fluid, singing bass lines on 'Textures' are a straight lift from the jazz-fusion school of the late '70s.
Watchtower — Cynic toured with these Texas tech-metal legends early on and shared a mutual obsession with odd time signatures. The frantic, stop-start complexity of Control and Resistance is the structural skeleton for everything Cynic did before the Vocoders took over.
Allan Holdsworth — The band members have repeatedly pointed to Holdsworth’s legato technique and 'sheets of sound' as their primary guitar influence. You can hear it in the liquid, ethereal soloing style on 'How Could I' where the notes seem to smear together rather than being picked.