CYNIC And ATHEIST Announce Spring/Summer 2023 'Focus And Presence' North American Tour

Progressive music icon CYNIC will embark on an extensive North American co-headlining tour with ATHEIST. The trek will launch on June 10 in Austin, Texas and will conclude on July 9 in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Tickets will go on sale this Friday, April 28.

CYNIC will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of its debut album, "Focus", by performing the seminal LP in its entirety while also paying homage to late members Sean Reinert and Sean Malone.

Later in the year, CYNIC will then perform at the illustrious ProgPower USA festival on September 6 in Atlanta, Georgia.

CYNIC's touring lineup will feature Paul Masvidal on vocals and guitars, Max Phelps (EXIST, DEATH TO ALL) on additional guitars and vocals, Brandon Giffin (THE FACELESS, THE ZENITH PASSAGE) on bass, Matt Lynch (NOVA COLLECTIVE, INTRONAUT) on drums and percussion, and Zeke Kaplan on the keyboard. Lynch has been drumming with CYNIC since 2015 and appeared on the band's latest full-length, "Ascension Codes", as well as the 2018 single "Humanoid". Additionally, Phelps, having also appeared on "Ascension Codes", and Giffin have previously toured with CYNIC during the band's "Carbon Based Anatomy" and "Kindly Bent To Free Us" tours.

Masvidal comments: "Come join us for a night of CYNIC/ATHEIST magic! We'll be celebrating our lifelong journey together with a night of progressive music and timeless memories. Don't miss it!"

ATHEIST's Kelly Shaefer adds: "This has been something that Paul and I have been talking about in some capacity since we were in our early 20s. It's surreal to share a 30-year milestone together, and this tour will showcase for us a chance to play songs from our first three records as a special trilogy anniversary set, including songs not performed live in decades. Two titans of technical progressive metal coming together for a unicorn of a tour....one you will not want to miss!"

Tour sponsor Simon of Pull The Plug Patches comments: "Pull The Plug Patches have been longtime fans since the early 1990s, and both ATHEIST and CYNIC are two of our absolute favorite bands. It's an honor to be able to be the presenting sponsor on such a landmark tour for two of the godfathers of progressive death metal. I remember picking up 'Unquestionable Presence' right around the time of release, blew me away and is to this day one of my favorite albums. And for CYNIC, my first introduction was the 'At Death's Door II' sampler that Roadrunner released. I bought 'Focus' the day it came out and again, one of my all-time favorite records."

"Focus And Presence" North American tour dates:

Jun. 10 - Austin, TX @ Come and Take it Live
Jun. 11 - Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
Jun. 12 - Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
Jun. 13 - Mesa, AZ @ Nile Theater
Jun. 14 - San Diego, CA @ Brick by Brick
Jun. 16 - Las Vegas, NV @ Backstage Bar
Jun. 17 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
Jun. 19 - Portland, OR @ Bossanova Ballroom
Jun. 20 - Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theater
Jun. 21 - Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
Jun. 23 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Soundwell
Jun. 24 - Denver, CO @ Oriental Theater
Jun. 25 - Lawrence, KS @ The Bottleneck
Jun. 26 - Milwaukee WI @ X-Ray Arcade
Jun. 27 - Chicago, IL @ Reggies
Jun. 29 - Ft. Wayne, IN @ Piere's
Jun. 30 - Detroit, MI @ The Sanctuary
Jul. 01 - Toronto, ON @ Lee's Palace
Jul. 02 - Quebec City, QC @ La Source de la Martinière
Jul. 03 - Montreal, QC @ Fairmount Theater
Jul. 05 - Boston, MA @ Middle-East Downstairs
Jul. 06 - New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
Jul. 07 - Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage
Jul. 08 - Richmond, VA @ Canal Club
Jul. 09 - Greensboro, NC @ Hangar 1819
Sep. 06 - Atlanta, GA @ ProgPower USA *

* Festival date, CYNIC only

Released in 1993, "Focus" is a certified classic. Although that era ended with transformation into the short-lived PORTAL, and then a further splinter toward AEON SPOKE, CYNIC's reunion-era has found them embraced in a way that proves how ahead of the times they were in the '90s. Through monuments such as the "Traced In Air" (2008) and "Kindly Bent To Free Us" (2014) albums, the "Carbon-Based Anatomy" and "Re-Traced" EPs, and a surprising rebirth with the "Humanoid" single of 2018, the CYNIC legacy remains untarnished.

The year 2020 will go down in history as a tremendously difficult time for the global human population. For the CYNIC family, the struggle was not restricted to a pandemic. It was two utterly senseless losses that threw the band's immediate concerns into the background: the premature deaths of drummer Sean Reinert in January, at age 48, and bassist Sean Malone in December, at age 50, were shocking and unthinkable.

Reinert, a founding CYNIC member since formation in 1988, was highly influential to a multitude of young drummers. His work on "Focus" and DEATH's watershed 1991 album "Human" found him sculpting extreme technical metal with a jazz fusion-inspired approach. Now taken for granted, that approach to the instrument and the genre was undoubtedly pioneered in large part by Reinert. Though parting with CYNIC in 2015, his imprint on CYNIC is inescapable.

The death of Sean Malone dealt another horrible layer of tragedy to CYNIC's 2020. In his many years with the band, Malone's virtuoso playing meshed intuitively with Reinert's. Together they formed a nucleus of kinetic, highly capable rhythmic dexterity that fueled CYNIC's celestial aims.

ATHEIST was formed in 1988 by Shaefer and drummer Steve Flynn. Followed by bands such as DEATH and CYNIC, they would define a sound that is a pillar of complex, progressive, jazz-infused death metal intensity, with supreme musical prowess — the genre celebrated and known today as "progressive technical death metal." ATHEIST attained that status thanks to its debut, "Piece Of Time" (1989),and the aforementioned "Unquestionable Presence" (1991),both regarded as important benchmarks of the genre.