Kindly Bent to Free Us

Over four years in the making, 'Kindly Bent to Free Us' is a new apex in the evolution of progressive rock visionaries CYNIC. The album's eight tracks are rich, vibrant, and evocative, and the mark of a band that are masters of their craft. As "True Hallucination Speak", "The Lion's Roar", and the title track personify, CYNIC 2014 is transcendent. Without a doubt, 'Kindly Bent to Free Us' is CYNIC's tour de force and yet another crescendo in the band's illustrious, ground-breaking career.

Mixing technical death metal and thundering jazz fusion, the Florida band Cynic's 1993 debut, Focus, still sounds like future music, and their post-reunion LP, 2008’s Traced in Air, thrived on a similarly ambitious mix of power and prowess. But did they really need to make a third record?

I've never actually looked forward to the time around Valentine's Day, until 2014. If I'm giving anyone a heart-shaped box this year, that thing will have a copy of the freshly purchased Cynic album, Kindly Bent to Free Us in it. I personally feel like this is a much more grand gesture of love than

Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free Us review: Kellogg’s called, and they want their damned motto back.