He helped me to understand the relationship between the visual and auditory medium’s and how they would become one and the same if all was aligned.” He also chose a Venosa painting for the band's follow-up album Traced in Air.

On August 1, 2022, it was announced that Masvidal and Warren Riker had completed a remix and remaster of Focus, which was released the following year on June 9, 2023, to celebrate the album's 30th anniversary.

[7] The lyrics, written by Masvidal, are poetic, philosophically and spiritually laden texts that take on subjects such as perceiving the world as whole, distinguishing reality and illusion, concentration and meditation.

Cynic found themselves touring to promote the album with brutal death metal band Cannibal Corpse and predictably received a mixed reception from their fans.

You know, it was just wait, the last time we did this song I think a bottle hit my head and we were in Texas somewhere with Cannibal Corpse..."[13]This negative reaction from within the metal scene was part of the reason Cynic broke up in 1994:"...We were just really sensitive, creative people that wanted to make music and we were devoured by the industry and we didn’t get a lot of support and people didn’t understand Focus at the time.

It has no hallmarks of any particular time, drawing, as it does, from things going all the way back to jazz’s ‘60s renaissance, while feeling like music being beamed to Earth by some distant future race.

Now that progressive music of various kinds is more acceptable in the metal universe than it was in 1993, Focus takes its place alongside a rarified set of albums that continue to sell and find new generations of fans.

- Darryl Wright (@punksteez), Lovechild Of The Music & Technology Marriage "There is so much that could go wrong on this Cynic album that its artistic success is a thrilling high-wire act.

Sean Malone’s burbling, prog-jazz-fusion bass (somewhat reminiscent of Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s work for Ornette Coleman) would seem an unlikely playmate for the often serrated guitars of Paul Masvidal and Jason Gobel.

Then you have vocals that alternate between sepulchral growls and robotic treatments seemingly inspired by the “Lord’s Prayer” section of Pink Floyd’s “Sheep.” The drums eschew a Bonham-esque groove for a busy polyrhythmic approach, with long fills that travel around what sounds like a big kit, which in hands other than Sean Reinert’s could be horribly distracting.

Then they have the audacity to insert sections of limpid melodic beauty, arpeggiated layered guitars blending with synthesizers, creating a sense of yearning.

In anticipation, blogger Into the Wells writes:[22]"After years of being hailed as a promising act in Florida's Death Metal scene, Cynic recorded “Focus”.

In 2023, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the album, Sandre the Giant from the Killchain blogzine wrote:[28]“Some of metal’s most forward thinking and progressive bands over the last 30 years owe their existence to Cynic.

You can sense the jazzy experimentation surging through the likes of Meshuggah, Dillinger Escape Plan, Decrepit Birth, Mastodon, while Veil of Maya and Textures were both named for songs on the record.”All tracks are written by Paul Masvidal, Jason Gobel, Sean Malone and Sean Reinert, except where notedFocus album personnel adapted from the CD liner notes of the 2004 remaster.