"You listen to Chick Corea and play death metal? What?"

Before they weathered natural disasters, equipment detainment and band member departures and released their seminal 1994 LP Focus, jazzy//technical/progressive death metallers Cynic were a technical thrash/death metal band. A really, really good one.

Many folks can't get down with the fusion/jazz influences and vocoder vocals so prevalent in Focus and their newest, Traced in Air. I personally think they have a lush and substantially refined take on the "Chick-Corea-meets-death metal" concept Atheist arguably started, but anyway, these demos will please anyone who a) likes technical metal, b) hates that "dumb jazz shit" on Focus or c) wants to trace the band's progression literally year-to-year, this post is for you.

I do mean it about the last point. Included in the ZIP file are four demos: '88, '89's Reflections of a Dying World, '90, and '91, which features tracks "The Eagle Nature" and "Uroboric Forms" mostly devoid of the major jazz influences that would come to be on the Focus versions. Paul Masvidal also has a roar on par with Chuck Schuldiner, in my humble opinion (he later ditched this in favor of the vocoder when a doctor warned him throat damage was imminent). He and Jason Gobel's soloing remains totally sweet, and the latter two demos feature the masterful, go-to-90s-tech-death-metal-bassist Tony Choy (also of Atheist and Pestilence) skillfully and tightly holding down some excellent melodic bass lines.

Download the Cynic demos in one tidy package HERE.

The lineups vary a bit on each, so here's a rundown:

1988 Demo:
Jack Kelly - Vocals
Paul Masvidal - Guitar
Mark Van Erp - Bass
Sean Reinert - Drums










Reflections of a Dying World (1989):
Paul Masvidal - Guitar, Vocals
Jason Gobel - Guitar
Mark Van Erp - Bass
Sean Reinert - Drums









1990 and 1991 Demos:
Paul Masvidal - Guitar, Vocals
Jason Gobel - Guitar
Tony Choy - Bass
Sean Reinert - Drums