#Muddy heights 2 demo series#

Human is rightly regarded as not only perhaps Death's greatest record, not only perhaps the greatest death metal document of all time, but indeed one of the greatest heavy metal records period. Eventually, however, with Death's complete band turnover, the opportunity was ripe, and both Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert seized upon the opportunity to work with their friend and clear idol. As per Masvidal, there had actually been mild attempts on Schuldiner's part to get him to join Death even earlier than Human, efforts rebuffed in order to focus on Cynic.

#Muddy heights 2 demo series#

Masvidal, in fact, was even invited to play with Death as early as 1989, filling in for a series of shows in Mexico instead of attending his own high school graduation. Their fingerprint is noticeable on the early Cynic demos, which seem to follow closely behind the same path Schuldiner himself was treading, starting with raw punky roots and gradually developing a deepening technicality and progressive flourish not to derail a piece for lengthy showing off, but instead to spice up compositions and make them feel more organic and breathing. Death did not invent death metal, but they did revolutionize it, being commonly cited by functionally every death metal band of the era as a major inspiration. To say they were admirers of Death, the project Schuldiner spearheaded, would be a vast understatement.

Masvidal and Reinert had been in contact with Schuldiner since the mid '80s, having initially made contact with him through the underground tape trading scene. But none of these documents is more important to understanding Cynic's aesthetic development than Death's 1991 death metal masterpiece Human. Each of these four recordings is important in marking that progression and, while the 1991 demo would most keenly premise where the band was to go and the Monstrosity and Master recordings would seemingly expel where the band would never go again. It is from these events that bridge between that promising and compelling 1990 demo and the release of the still-futuristic Focus is found, not just filling out the chronology, but also answering certain key questions about their aesthetic development, charting the path from the thrash of their '80s material to their jazz fusion progressive death metal. He was to be replaced by Sean Malone, the bassist who would become part of the central core of Cynic from that point until his passing decades later.

In 1991, Tony Choy had left Cynic to join the substantially more active Atheist, a group already with a record under their belt and in the process of finalizing a second. This delayed the group's ability to capitalize on their demo, and, in 1992, Jason Gobel joined Monstrosity in the studio with original Cynic bassist Mark van Erp (as well as a young George 'Corpsegringer' Fisher - not to mention the band's other members) to help write and record their debut record Imperial Doom. The position in Death came with some strings they were to tour for the record, as well, as members of the live lineup, and the touring would last until March of 1992. Simultaneously, Masvidal would write and track guitars for Master's debut, On the Seventh Day, God Created. Sometime around the same time, Masvidal and Reinert had taken a call from Chuck Schuldiner, a clear idol and influence given the material and approach demonstrated on their earliest demos, and accepted roles writing and recording the new Death album Human.

These are the facts: in 1991, the group recorded a new demo and sent it off to Roadrunner Records who, in their excitement, signed the band to a contract asking for an album. The next year of the band's life is somewhat murky. The 1990 demo's sound was tremendously advanced but still ultimately not an adequate precursor to the sound the group would discover themselves and develop both apart and together for the next several decades. But we know this is not the band's legacy, that this series is not being written because of the thrash metal legacy they left, but instead of deeply progressive metal, starting with death and moving far, far beyond. There were, after all, any number of also-ran bands at the time, ones that produced scant material before disappearing forever listening from the past forward, it is easy to imagine that the next step for the band would be to produce a record and rocket past those groups, asserting themselves as tech thrash legends alongside groups such as Toxik and the like. Their first two recordings were spotty affairs, with ups and downs to each, but that third magical demo seemed to finally develop a sound hybridizing technical/progressive thrash metal and early death metal in an exciting and energetic form. Cynic's 1990 demo saw the band, from one vantage point, ready to begin their careers proper.