Artist – Cynic
Album – Kindly Bent To Free Us
Rating – 8/10
Cynic are a jazz-fusion/progressive rock band based in Tampa, Florida. Kindly Bent to Free Us is the third album in their discography over a course of 21 years.
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Ever since they released their debut album roughly twenty one years ago, Cynic have been known for their genre-bending and intriguing music. Their amalgamation of jazz-fusion with progressive metal has proven that Cynic are willing to create anomalistic music that still retains an interesting sound with multitudes of talent backing it. So where exactly does Kindly Bent to Free Us fit into the short list of records that Cynic has released? Well, once again they continue their trend of doing something different, although this record appears to be more different in the context of their past discography. There is much more of an emphasis on progressive rock and jazz-styled textures coming from the instruments. There are no growls to be found here, and any elements of metal are sparse and laced into the music in an almost invisible manner. They are merely nuances in certain moments of the album. Kindly Bent to Free Us doesn’t necessarily push any boundaries in a general context, but it is a shift in direction for Cynic.
The record’s first ten minutes consist of two previously released tracks, ‘True Hallucination Speak’ and ‘The Lion’s Roar’. While these tracks are good by themselves, they feel awkwardly placed due to the fact that they indeed set the tone for the album, yet they are basically the sum of everything that follows. In a way, they almost feel like the exact same track because they follow the same formula. They both consist of strong bass and drum patterns, brief guitar solos, huge choruses and soft passages that feel forced and out of place. The album truly picks up when the title track begins. The softer passages begin to feel much more fluent, and it breaks away from what the first two tracks consisted of. ‘Kindly Bent to Free Us’ has a much more subtle feel with the drums and lets the incredible bass-playing and clean guitar do most of the talking. The succeeding track, ‘Infinite Shapes’ features verses that consist of atmospheric and spacey guitar textures, and bombastic choruses with not-so-subtle synth pieces filling in any areas in which there is a vocal break.
The more interesting half of the album begins with track number five, ‘Moon Heart Sun Head’. Each passage of this song is rather interesting, especially when the bass is fronting the bass and can be heard much more clearly. The only issue with this song is the spoken word piece that almost ruins the subtle atmosphere of the song, but it manages to pick back up immediately. Two tracks later, ‘Holy Fallout’ manages to unleash the greatest six and a half minutes of this album in its entirety. Every passage on this track feels fresh, and they lead up to a brief yet very effective solo. Succeeding the solo is when the track becomes truly chaotic and begins to ooze with the emotion and sincerity that wasn’t found so easily on any tracks before it.
Kindly Bent to Free Us exhibits Cynic as they tread new, yet simultaneously familiar, waters. The resulting product contains some ideas that begin to feel dull or dragged out, but that isn’t to say that there are some fantastic moments on this album. It is still Cynic in their progressive and futuristic glory, yet it drifts away from their original formula in exchange for a less heavy and more peaceful atmosphere. Cynic have proven that they are capable of moving in this direction tastefully, but there are kinks to be worked out in the future.
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Review by Arden Collier.
