June 2025 - Featured Release - The Infinite Edition
"Focus" was a huge record for Ben & I at the time & I still regard it as a classic progressive death metal release today.
4.5/5
I also regard it as a progressive/tech-death classic, though upon revisiting, I find that it's not as 100% perfect as I thought it was 5 years before this comment. Here's my review summary:
As I revisit Cynic's 1993 debut, I can still hear its amazing uniqueness! Many of the members have started out in death metal bands, appearing in at least one album by Death, Master, and Monstrosity. Cynic had the idea of blending death metal with jazzy prog, which has also been done by Atheist back then. The best moments of Focus come in their more spacey moments as opposed to when they just go all-out tech-death. A lot of the power comes from the rhythm section, with the mystical bass of Sean Malone and the dexterous drumming of Sean Reinert (RIP the two Seans). It's also interesting hearing Paul Masvidal's vocoded cleans in contrast with the death growls of Tony Teegarden, along with the guitarwork of Jason Gobel. Two of the tracks would end up serving as the basis for later bands' names, "Veil of Maya" and "Textures". Those tracks and a couple others in the first half have lots of Watchtower-infused jazzy brilliance. However, their attempts at sounding metal in a couple tracks are a bit iffy and that's why a half-star is knocked from my original 5-star rating. Still it's quite a classic, with most of the first half still as perfect as ever. Just turn it on and.... FOCUS!
4.5/5