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Nov 17, 20225 min read

Cynic - Traced In Air (2008)

FROM THE CRYPTS - CELEBRATING PAST ALBUM RELEASES in the HISTORY of HARD ROCK & HEAVY METAL…



On November 17, 2008, Cynic released their second full-length studio album Traced In Air in Europe via Season of Mist.


It was the bands first album since their 1993 debut Focus.



Background:

Cynic disbanded during the fall of 1994 while working on a new album. On January 17, 2008, Cynic resumed musical activity and Paul Masvidal said he wanted to complete the project after the Reunion Tour. It was originally believed that Cynic would be working with Jason Suecof of Capharnaum fame. However, Warren Riker (Down's producer) was working with the band. Tymon Kruidenier was then announced as a hired replacement for guitarist David Senescu. Kruidenier also handled the death growls for the album.



In 2008, drummer Sean Reinert (R.I.P.) gave an update on the second studio album and its musical style in an interview with Metal Hammer saying; 

“Yeah we got tons and tons of stuff lying around man from '94 to the present day man, it's gonna be great. Everyone can expect something stylistically the same as Focus but more upbeat, energetic and most important of all, pretty god damn brutal! I mean we're gonna mix in Bullacake by Niche Dexplicit into one of our songs but will be using real scary riffs and solos and more savage growling as well as Paul's robotic vocals and keyboarding. Basically all the shit which was there on Focus is all gonna be there with this new one too. But with some new things bundled in and a bit more brutal. It's gonna be good.” — Sean Reinert

Paul Masvidal announced in 2008 in an interview with Kerrang! magazine that the band were including two unreleased songs from when the band were working on the album in 1994, into the album.



On July 19, 2008, Cynic announced through YouTube that the album's name would be Traced in Air. The release date for Traced in Air was pushed back to November 17, 2008 in Europe, and November 25, 2008 in North America. All album artwork was designed by Robert Venosa. A remixed version of the album, Traced in Air Remixed, was released on September 27, 2019. The remix was produced by Adam "Nolly" Getgood, and featured new bass tracks from Sean Malone (R.I.P.). The growled vocals of Kruidenier were also mostly removed from the remixed version.



In July 2008, Blabbermouth.net revealed Masvidal had this to say on the album;

“We've been on an amazing journey discovering this new music and soon it will be yours. Expect the unexpected. The album is an intensely concentrated mosaic of internal and external energies, from the deepest peace to the purest aggression. There's an acquired taste that comes with a record of this density, but once your ears wrap themselves around the language at work, everything falls into place and suddenly you'll feel a sudden urge to sing, scream or maybe even cry. The album has a beginning, middle and end. The story will reveal itself after numerous listens and then you may not want to let go. Besides Reinert and I, Tymon brought some new life force and magic to the record with fierce growling and poetic guitar sensibilities. Malone also did a fine job with the low end, grooving away with Reinert in a pocket land from hell! — Paul Masvidal

In 2008, Loudwire magazine ranked Traced In Air as No. 2 in the 10 Best Metal Albums of 2008. The first track and the last track of this album juxtapose each other by being exact opposites, both different philosophies of time. Nunc fluens, Latin for "flowing now," is the belief in time and the flow of it through an eternity, never beginning nor stopping. Nunc stans, Latin for "abiding now", is the belief that time itself doesn't exist, and that any distinctions between now, before and the future have either fallen away or don't exist.


In 2018, Decibel Magazine ranked Traced In Air as No. 4 in the Top Ten Metal Reunion Albums.


In 2019, Dominik Böhmer of the blog EverythingIsNoise.net wrote;

"Where would we be without Cynic? Where would Cynic be without Traced In Air? I don’t want to imagine that world. 2008’s LP by the crown princes of progressive metal set the high watermark for progressive metal in the new millennium, one that has arguably still not been surpassed."

Wil Lewellyn of Treblezine.com listed Traced In Air amongst the 10 Essential Sci-Fi Metal Albums;

"The album is sonically heavier than Focus, but no less overt in its prominent jazz influence, with tracks like Evolutionary Sleeper showing they could defy time and be the band from the past and a band from the future at the same time." – Wil Lewellyn

Critical Reception:

In a review for AllMusic, Eduardo Rivadavia had this to say about Traced in Air;

“As liberally and recklessly as the term "progressive" is regularly applied to any sort of rock music that breaks with conventional genre templates, there are certain bands and albums for which it still feels not only necessary, for lack of better definitions, but actually appropriate. Cynic and their 1993 watershed, Focus, are a perfect case in point. Even when compared to contemporary releases by other proponents of so-called "progressive" Heavy Metal that emerged from Florida's teeming Death Metal scene in the early '90s (most notably original architects Death and jazz-fueled visionaries Atheist), Focus -- with its robotic vocals and synth-guitars -- sounded positively otherworldly in its singularity and, why not, sheer oddity. The rarity of its attributes was only reinforced by Cynic's breakup a short time later, and subsequent disinterest in ever following up their lone masterpiece...until now, with the release of their belated and largely unexpected sophomore album, Traced in Air. And since only guitarist Jason Gobel declined to join fellow original members Paul Masvidal (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Sean Malone (R.I.P.) (bass), and Sean Reinert (drums) for this reunion (being replaced by newcomer Tymon Kruidenier), Traced in Air's legitimacy is difficult to question -- even as the questions about what in blazes it would sound like start coming fast and furious. The short answer is "not quite like Focus, but there's still an essentially peculiar weirdness present that marks it as the work of Cynic -- even if the group's already tenuous links to the Death Metal movement survive only in the understated gravelly vocals that occasionally mirror Masvidal's now predominant clean singing and occasional falsettos (an acquired taste are those, by the way). Furthermore, though the hybrid Death/Jazz rhythmic foundation laid down by Reinert is as busy and aggressive as ever, when called for, Traced in Air's songs are more often than not built around melodic lines instead of Heavy Metal's basic currency: guitar riffs -- with such numbers as Integral Birth and Adam's Murmur among the few exceptions. This quality may prove particularly disorienting to unprepared Metal-heads, but then it drives home the realization that the reborn Cynic are less a Heavy Metal band than a progressive rock band and, as mentioned earlier, they wear the term especially well.
In short, those expecting a mere sequel to Focus will be mildly disappointed (but should have known better), and those worried about Traced in Air's altogether brief, 35-minute length should rest assured that it is easily offset by the sheer density of strange and beautiful musical nuances layered within, and the time required to absorb them all. And ultimately, the album does Cynic's legacy justice precisely because it challenges the listener to comprehend, by opening more doors than it closes and posing more questions than obvious answers -- and what could be more "progressive" than that?”

Re-Traced:

On May 17, 2010, Cynic released the EP, Re-Traced. It is composed of four re-interpretations of songs from Traced in Air, as well as one new song.



Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells



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