CYNIC

Traced In Air, Remixed SEASON of MIST

Floridian prog metal ingenues polish their shiniest prizes.

Originally released in 2008, Cynic’s second album arrived after 15 years of creative silence. The band’s debut album Focus emerged from death metal’s progressive wing in 1993; an inspired blend of technical extremity, jazz chords and dream pop haze, it immediately set them apart from their more brutish peers. But Traced In Air was something else entirely. Firmly entrenched in art rock and left-field melody, it was a comeback that redefined the band and placed them at the heart of heavy music’s progressive renaissance. Since then, Cynic have refused to pander to expectations, releasing the strange but immersive Carbon-Based Anatomy EP in 2011 and the deeply peculiar but fascinating Kindly Bent To Free Us in 2014. But it is Traced In Air that continues to be Cynic’s most adored creation and while you may question the worth of remixing albums from only a decade ago, this will certainly do while we wait for more new material.

Audio nerds will doubtless have a lovely time poring over the new versions of these beautiful but defiantly odd songs and working out where the differences lie between this and the original. In truth, Traced In Air Remixed isn’t a wholesale reimagining, but it does offer enhanced levels of punch, sparkle and depth to what was already an exquisitely detailed and enigmatic piece of work. You can hear it in rumbling overture Nunc Fluens, as Sean Reinert’s cascading percussion builds to the expected swirling crescendo, but with much clarity and sonic separation between instruments. Again, revered gem Evolutionary Sleeper simply sounds fuller, richer in colour and sharper in attack, Paul Masvidal’s vocoder-filtered voice included.

But let’s not get bogged down in technical minutiae. Traced In Air is one of the finest prog metal albums of this century’s first decade, remixed or not. That said, Paul Masvidal’s greatest cultural contribution is still his guitar work on the theme tune for US sitcom 3rd Rock From The Sun. Just saying.