Holy Time Changes Batman. Cynic are back!

Talent.  I read somewhere once that you should never take a lack of talent as an obstacle to becoming a genius.  If you listen to Cynic's latest release "Kindly Bent To Free Us" you will quickly realise the limits of that statement as the obvious talent and ability of Masvidal, Reinert and Malone have combined to make a genius of an album, one that will chart on my end of year list quite highly I suspect.

Move away from boxes when you put this record on, stop wasting your life putting things in pigeonholes and just open your ears to free flowing, thought provoking, heart warming and genuinely well thought out music.  Once you realise that the prominent bass sound is meant to sound like that (which should be in the opening few minutes of "True Hallucination Speak") you are already identifying one of the key driving components of this largely experimental outfit.



You'll soon come to hear on repeated listens that this is a band very much bettered by the distance between records - 2008 was Cynics last offering in the equally astonishing "Traced In Air".  The complexity of their structures manages to stand out without infringing on the ease with which you can sit back and listen to this record.  Everything seems to register very comfortably even if you have only just picked something up on the third or fourth listen it still kinda just slots into place.

The album cover is equally as mind-blowing as what lies inside and I personally cannot wait until 14th February when I can celebrate my love for myself by getting myself a copy of "Kindly Bent To Free Us".  In the meantime I will have to content myself with streaming the album over at Prog, which is what you should be doing right now.

"Kindly Bent To Free Us" is available via Seasons Of Mist worldwide from 14th Feb. (18th Feb North America)

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