Cynic — The Portal Tapes

The fan bases of the darker rock genres are legendarily small-minded, which makes it all the more curious that Florida’s Cynic have opted to release The Portal Tapes under their own name when, back in 1994—after they recorded the landmark prog-metal album Focus, toured, then disbanded—the songs were decidedly not meant for Cynic. (They were recorded for a side project/offshoot called... uh... Portal.) Ultimately this means that the young version of Cynic knew their fan base wouldn’t accept the direction they wanted to take, but that the mature version of Cynic has benefited from watching their critical profile heighten over the course of a decade-and-a-half hiatus and now actively chooses to defy fan expectations while keeping a stranglehold on their brand marketability.

If only the end result was worth the bother. This collection of ten tracks clearly has roots in metal and is played with all sorts of virtuoso flourishes that mark progressive rock, but instead of being some sort of bold step forward for the band, this is really just yet-another record of beautiful darkness, the kind that was artistically exhausted the minute that Evanescence won over legions of fans in small town America sometime in the early 2000s. The main problem is that The Portal Tapes is neither metal nor progressive enough. Aren’t metal and other forms of extreme and/or experimental music supposed to be edgy? This is basically luxuriously-polished, immaculately produced goth pop for death metal dudes needing to merge something palatable—but respectable!—into their playlists for their emo girlfriends.

Flashback again to 1994: industrial ragers Front Line Assembly had just spontaneously mutated their long standing dark ambient project Delerium into syrupy “pure moods” dance pop, a corporate juggernaut that exists to this day. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor made an appearance on Tori Amos’ second record Under the Pink, which suddenly became the one “sensitive” album acceptable to kids who were otherwise spending extraordinary effort trying to dehumanize themselves. And then there’s Type O Negative, essentially the first metal band to discover the financial benefits of goth-rock crossover. They were also label mates of Cynic at this time and struggled for credibility with both metal and goth audiences. The Portal Tapes shares something in common with all of these.

That being said, it’s not a complete waste of time. Progressive rock and metal are both notoriously wanky, suggesting that music heavily influenced by both might be devoid of all songcraft. But fans of actual songwriting will actually find it here, especially in the melodic interplay between the lovely but generic vocals of Aruna Abrams and main man Paul Masvidal’s own slithery crooning. “Karma’s Plight” is a great example of this, as it cuts a sleepy, stoned atmosphere with a blast of psychedelia and a welcome guitar solo. The semi-spacey “Cosmos” is also a good one, as it places the expected wankery (along with the origin of the “Portal” name) into the context that is most appropriate for it. “Crawl Above” could have been played by any of the ‘90s more adventurous alternative rock stations, and the undulating choruses of “Mirror Child” are enjoyably inescapable. The smaller minded fans will definitely want to cut out before they hear “Not the Same,” however; a twee pop ballad, it might be a meta-statement about the way such fans will think about Cynic going forward.