CAN’T WAIT FOR MORE CYNIC? WELL HERE COMES PORTAL!

No, not that Portal.

Here’s a pretty major lapse in my metal education: I somehow had no idea that there was a Cynic “off-shoot” project called Portal, which combines the talents of Paul Masvidal, Sean Reinert, guitarist Jason Gobel, bassist Chris Kringel, and vocalist Aruna Abrams. There’s even some demos already up on YouTube (like the one above), so really, seriously, total shame on me for not knowing about this. But, hey, I’m excited to learn about it now!

The group apparently demoed ten songs together seventeen years ago (!!!), and those songs will finally see the light of day in March, when Season of Mist releases The Portal Tapes. Here’s a statement regarding the release from Mr. Masvidal himself:

“I never thought this day would come. A couple demos we’d record after Focus, under the name ‘Portal,’ would develop a life of their own, and somehow become part of Cynic‘s larger discography. As an artist, it’s an amazingly unpredictable journey, to see these quiet labors of love, find their way, in their own time.”

The Portal Tapes come out March 27 in North America and March 23 in Europe, and the release will be limited to five-thousand CDs and just one-thousand vinyl copies. We’ll post pre-order info as soon as we get it so none of you miss out. If the aforementioned YouTube demos are any indication, this is definitely gonna be worth owning — which is not at all shocking.

-AR

[via The PRP]