Cynic - The Space for This

     Prog dorks the world over shared a communal musical boner today with the announcement that Cynic's long-anticipated next LP, entitled Kindly Bent to Free Us, will be released on Valentine's Day 2014. Even though I'm a latecomer to the Cynic fold, I'll still freely admit that I'm one of those dorks.

     Such feelings of arousal, however, are alas not universal. The proggier, spacier musical direction of Cynic's last EP, 2011's Carbaon-Based Anatomy, left many old school Cynic fans unimpressed, and this EP continues to be divisive, with some fans lamenting the band's progression away from it's death metal roots and some fans embracing it.

     I'm one of the latter, and I can't wait to hear a whole album's worth of newer-school Cynic, but as an olive branch to the former chunk of Cynic fans I've decided to go back a bit in the band's catalogue for a song to commemorate the occasion of the album announcement. To that end, your song this evening is "The Space for This" from 2008's classic Traced in Air, because I think that's a track and record we can all get behind. Cynic fans of the world unite!

Song of the Day: Cynic - Evolutionary Sleeper

     Recently I've been getting pretty into Cynic, who I'd never even heard of until maybe six months ago but who apparently are death-prog legends whose sound has mutated and evolved into something I'm not really even going to try and describe*. I'll only say that Cynic is a bit like Tool, if only in the sense that Cynic is also comprised of a group of phenomenally talented musicians pushing the limits of their craft

     To give you just the smallest taste of Cynic, your song for today is "Evolutionary Sleeper", from 2008's Traced in Air. It's a cool song, and kind of a middle ground in Cynic's catalogue, a stepping stone track if you will, showing what Cynic sounded like in the middle of their journey from death metal to... wherever the fuck they are now. Hope you like it.

* Well not right now anyways. Cynic will definitely be the subject of a What You Should Be Listening To at some time or another. Whenever I get around to it. Stay tuned.