NOT FEELING CYNICAL ABOUT CYNIC’S LINE-UP CHANGES

So yesterday, Cynic posted a message on their Facebook page in which they announced the departure of bassist Robin Zielhorst and guitarist Tymon Kruidenier from the band. The reasons are not typical, which is to say, there were no so-called “creative differences” or “disagreements about the direction of the band,” no one is suing anyone or fucked someone’s girlfriend or anything like that. The reason is simple and logistical: Zielhort and Kruidenier live in The Netherlands, while Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert live in California. So there’s no drama here whatsoever.

And not only is there no drama here, but this isn’t even really bad news. Here’s why:

• Zielhort and Kruidenier weren’t even original members of Cynic in the first place, and to the best of my knowledge, they didn’t write any material for Traced in Air.
• Zielhort and Kruidenier are extremely talented musicians (I mean, you’d have to be to play in Cynic, so duh), and they now “plan to work on a new release from their band Exivious,” which is great, ’cause Exivious are terrific.
• Perhaps aware of the fact that fans might take this news a little hard, the statement says that The new Cynic release is coming in summer 2011.

So to review: these dudes are leaving the band on good terms, and by this time next year we could have new releases from Cynic and Exivious? Other than the fact that poor Paul and Sean now have to audition some new guys, I’m not really seeing any downside here.

You can read Cynic’s full statement on the matter here, and then feel free to disagree with me in the comments section, although I really don’t see why you would.

-AR