EXIVIOUS

"Demo 2001" is the debut demo by Dutch technical/ progressive metal act Exivious. At the time this demo was released Exivious were totally unknown but that has certainly changed with frontman and guitarist Tymon Kruidenier´s temporary membership of legendary US technical/ progressive metal act Cynic. At the time of the release of this two-track demo CD Exivious was a three-piece act with Tymon Kruidenier on guitars and aggressive/ raspy vocals, Jan Henningheim on guitars and vocoder vocals and Iwan Hendrikx on drums. The lineup that recorded and released Exivious self-titled debut full-length studio album in 2009 includes yet another temporary member of Cynic in bassist Robin Zielhorst and Textures drummer Stef Broks.

To say that the two songs on this demo CD reminds me a bit about Cynic would be an understatement on the grand scale. This IS Cynic. Well not completely but the similarities are so many that I will go as far as to call the music on this demo a tribute to Cynic. The two songs are actually pretty good and the production is also pretty strong for a demo but it´s hard to come around the fact that Exivious were a total Cynic clone at this point in their career. The aggressive vocals sound one to one like Tony Teegarden, the vocoder vocals sound similar to Paul Masvidal´s vocoder vocals, the death thrashy riffing, the new age jazzy sections and even the guitar solos have similar sounds and choices of notes as the ones Cynic play on "Focus (1993)".

All the clone talk aside the two songs on this demo are actually rather impressive and fully showcase what a talented act Exivious were even this early on. They would soon ditch the vocals completely as heard on their 2002 demo which is fully instrumental and while I usually prefer music with vocals I think it was the only wise choice for Exivious. Had they continued down the path they started on "Demo 2001", they would never have escaped Cynic´s shadow. A 2.5 - 3 star rating is deserved for this demo. If you can´t live with the almost scary similarity to Cynic you´ll probably rate it lower.

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