Cynic have given a proper digital release to their “Kindly Bent To Free Us” b-side “Earth Is My Witness“. That song was the last full track the progressive metal band wrote with their classic lineup of vocalist/guitarist Paul Masvidal, drummer Sean Reinert and bassist Sean Malone during the sessions for the above-mentioned 2014 album. Tragically, the latter two musicians both passed away in 2020. Masvidal commented of this track now arriving:
“Surprise drop on Bandcamp today.
Earth is My Witness is the last full song Sean Reinert, Sean Malone, and I recorded together during the Kindly Bent to Free Us sessions. It didn’t quite fit the album. It had its own spirit, a kind of post-Kindly language, so we left it off. It briefly appeared on a limited box set, but this is its first proper digital release. Starting with Bandcamp for now. Thanks for listening and for being here.
This one doesn’t begin so much as it unfolds. It moves like a rite of passage, emotional and raw, pulling through tension before opening into something wide and luminous. There’s a quiet reckoning inside it, a feeling of being shaped by unseen forces. Lyrically, it circles around what it means to be witnessed by the Earth itself. As Alan Watts said, “You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”
