The name Cynic sparks an array of sentiments in people familiar with band's music. There are those aspiring musicians who tremble at the thought of decoding one of the band's songs and bow down in absolute submission to their musical artistry. There are the jazz listeners who look down upon them as wannabe jazz musicians who never cut it. And then the minority, usually the death metal purists, who think of them as being overly pretentious and generally a scourge in the death metal scene. Well, anyway the band is back after a 15 year hiatus with their sophomore release, Traced in Air.

Musically, the band has cut down a lot on the layered, Fripp influenced guitar bits and generally sound a lot less technical in their approach to the music. This progression doesn't come as a surprise to me since it was fairly obvious from the direction that their music was headed from Cynic to Portal to Aeon Spoke.

Also, as expected, they've almost completely abandoned the use of death metal grunts on this one, not that I cared for in the first place anyway. Paul Masvidal has taken the robotic voice to a more advanced, refined level, sounding a lot closer to Justin Broadrick (Godflesh/Jesu) than the Paul on Focus.

The album starts of with an introduction called Nunc Fluens, which is very reminiscent of Sentiment from Focus, and then into what is arguably the heaviest song on the album; The Space for This. Kudos to Warren Riker for doing an awesome job with the production on the album. Especially the work he has done on Sean Reinert's kit. If I had a complaint about Focus, it was the production on it. I didn't think it was a good representation of Sean's monster drumming skills. Also, most of you would agree with me when I say that Paul Masvidal is one of the most underrated guitarists in the metal world. The man gets hardly any credit for his classical melodic sense or his compositional skills, both as a lead and a rhythm guitarist.

I had mixed feelings about this reunion trend-train that they'd hopped on along with fellow Tampa band Atheist. But they've come out full guns blazing and brought new hope for me as an (ex-)progressive metal fan. There's absolutely no excuse for you not to buy this album.

Year - 2008

Label - Season of Mist