Cynic (band) Musical style What was there musical style? Cynic's first recordings feature a more punk, thrash and hardcore sound, but in the 1990s their sound changed What did their sound change to? a highly complex, experimental and extremely technical form of progressive metal, while still retaining their death metal roots.
Did they change their sound any more?
Did Cynic's change their sound any more from progressive metal, retaining death metal roots?
Cynic's first recordings feature a more punk, thrash and hardcore sound, but in the 1990s their sound changed towards a highly complex, experimental and extremely technical form of progressive metal, while still retaining their death metal roots. Their 1990 demo displays a hyper-technical form of death/thrash, and the following 1991 Roadrunner demo bears a notable resemblance to Death and jazz-death metal pioneers Atheist, featuring two songs from Focus in cruder, more brutal form. Many influences from jazz and jazz-rock fusion can be heard on their debut album Focus. Focus has both "growls" and "robotic" vocals, using a vocoder. The offshoot Portal later released a demo recording that continues even further in the direction of progressive space rock, refining and softening up their sound. Cynic's 2008 album Traced in Air melded together the styles and influences heard on 1993's Focus with the more progressive-oriented Portal approach. The result had Cynic put less emphasis on its extreme metal elements, with new guttural vocalist Tymon Kruidenier playing a smaller role than Tony Teegarden did on Focus. Additionally, Paul Masvidal all but abandoned his vocoder robotic vocals, opting instead for a more natural singing voice, with a subtler --although noticeable-- vocoder layer that increases an octave his voice. Noting the journey from metal to the progressives, The New York Times proclaimed in a positive review of Traced in Air that "Cynic should be understood not so much alongside any metal bands but along with the radical harmonic progressives in the last 45 years of pop and jazz: composers like Milton Nascimento, The Beach Boys or Pat Metheny." CANNOTANSWER
Cynic's 2008 album Traced in Air melded together the styles and influences heard on 1993's Focus with the more progressive-oriented Portal approach.
Cynic is an American progressive metal band formed in Miami, Florida in 1987 which incorporates elements of progressive rock, alternative rock, and extreme metal. Their first album, Focus, released on September 14, 1993, is widely regarded as a landmark release of the progressive metal genre. Cynic disbanded in 1994, but they reunited in 2006 and released their second album on November 17, 2008. Traced in Air was released through French label Season of Mist, followed up by an EP titled Re-Traced on May 18, 2010 and an EP titled Carbon-Based Anatomy on November 11, 2011. Their third studio album, Kindly Bent to Free Us, was released on February 14, 2014. In December 2017, after two years of an uncertain future, founding member Sean Reinert confirmed his split from Cynic. Reinert died at the age of 48 on January 24, 2020. A longtime Cynic bass player, Sean Malone, died at the age of 50 eleven months later, leaving Masvidal as the only remaining original core member left.

History

Demo era (1987–1991) 
Cynic was formed by guitarist and frontman Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert in 1987. In 1988, the band made their first recording, simply called the 88 Demo. After the demo, Paul Masvidal took over vocal duties, while continuing to play guitar. The band also added a second guitarist, Jason Gobel. Another demo followed in 1989, titled Reflections of a Dying World. 1989 also brought the addition of bassist Tony Choy. In 1990, the group went to the studio to record their third demo, plainly titled 90 Demo. In 1991, Cynic signed with Roadrunner Records and recorded their fourth and final demo, known as Demo 1991.

Recording Focus (1993) 

The recording of Cynic's full-length debut album Focus did not begin immediately after the band signed a new contract with Roadrunner Records. Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert had played on Death's 1991 album Human and were obligated to take part in the supporting tour of Europe. During this tour, Death ran into serious financial trouble, which resulted in Masvidal and Reinert's gear being confiscated for six months by a UK promoter. During this time, the band parted with bassist Tony Choy (who joined Atheist). Choy was replaced by Sean Malone. The band planned to record Focus in August 1992, but the day they were to begin recording, Hurricane Andrew struck Florida and destroyed both Gobel's home and the band's rehearsal space, leading to months of delay. The band used this time as an opportunity to write new material, much of which is featured on Focus. Tony Teegarden was eventually brought in to do the death growls, but all the vocoder vocals were recorded by Masvidal.

Focus was released internationally September 14, 1993.

Cynic toured extensively worldwide throughout 1993 and 1994, including the Dynamo Open Air Festival in May 1994.

Asked in a 2012 interview on Prog-Sphere.com about Focus material, Masvidal says:

First disbandment (1994−2006) 
Musical and personal differences halted work on a second studio album, as the group disbanded, with most of its members turning to side projects.

Gobel, Masvidal, and Reinert, with bassist Chris Kringel and vocalist/keyboardist Aruna Abrams, formed the short-lived Portal in 1994. The band's music featured slower tempos and very few distorted guitars compared to Cynic, but still had a complex, layered sound. A total of 10 tracks were recorded as pre-production demos, which were never officially released until 2012, where it was released as The Portal Tapes under the Cynic name. Masvidal and Reinert released an album with a more recent project, the indie act Æon Spoke, on SPV Records and Kringel also played with them, touring the UK in 2005. The members of Cynic loosely reunited (playing with Bill Bruford, Steve Hackett, and Jim Matheos on various tracks) on Gordian Knot's second album, Emergent.

Reunion (2006−2007) 
In September 2006, Paul Masvidal announced that Cynic was reuniting to perform during spring/summer of 2007. During June/July/August 2007, they played 15 shows across Europe, predominantly at major metal/rock festivals. The setlist consisted of songs from Focus, Portal's demo, a cover of Mahavishnu Orchestra's "Meeting of the Spirits," and a new song, "Evolutionary Sleeper."

The reunion line-up featured founding members Masvidal on guitar/vocals and Reinert on drums. Gobel, the longtime guitarist who played on Focus, could not participate due to family and work commitments, and David "Mavis" Senescu was brought aboard as a replacement. Malone, who played bass on Focus, was unavailable due to teaching and work commitments, and Chris Kringel, who played bass on the 1993 European tour, was brought in as a replacement. All death growls were handled by pre-recordings of Teegarden. All keyboards were covered by Masvidal and Senescu using guitar synths.

In early 2008, the band announced plans to complete a second studio album. Malone rejoined the lineup and Dutch guitarist Tymon Kruidenier of Exivious was added, the latter contributing death growls.

Traced in Air and Re-Traced (2008−2011) 

Traced in Air was released internationally November 17, 2008 on Season of Mist, followed by Robin Zielhorst being added as touring bassist.

The band played at the Wacken Open Air festival. The Traced in Air tour cycle began in Autumn 2008 with direct support slots for Opeth on their European tour.

Starting in February 2009, Cynic toured North America with Meshuggah and The Faceless, and beginning April 15, 2009 Cynic toured North America in support of DragonForce.

During the 2010 tour in support of Between the Buried and Me, along with Scale the Summit and the Devin Townsend Project, the band performed live "an experiment" titled "Wheels Within Wheels." Shortly after unveiling this new work, the band announced a new EP coming soon on their MySpace blog. Masvidal revealed in an interview the plans for the coming EP:

Later blogs on MySpace revealed that the new EP would be titled Re-Traced.

In May 2010, Cynic announced plans for their first US headlining tour. Titled "Re-Traced / Re-Focused Live", the tour found Cynic performing their debut album Focus in its entirety, among other tracks. The tour was co-sponsored by Decibel Magazine as its inaugural "Hall of Fame" tour series. It kicked off on July 22, 2010 in Los Angeles with Intronaut and Dysrhythmia as supporting bands. The tour ended on August 13, 2010. The final show of the tour took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; it was the first time in 16 years the band returned to their hometown to perform.

In December 2010, the band announced that bassist Robin Zielhorst and guitarist Tymon Kruidenier were no longer in Cynic due to logistical and various other reasons. In the same announcement, Masvidal and Reinert set the approximate release schedule for Cynic's next album, stating that "the new Cynic release should be coming in late 2011 on the Season of Mist label", and, in addition, "[t]hey are also working towards a remixed re-release of their classic recording 'Focus.'"

Carbon-Based Anatomy and Kindly Bent to Free Us (2011−2014) 

Cynic's website announced that the band was working on a new album and the "first baby steps into this gigantic process are being taken right now, creating little embryos of songs that will turn into fully fledged Cynic tunes over the course of the following months."

On September 6, 2011, Cynic announced a new EP titled Carbon-Based Anatomy would be released on November 11, 2011 in Europe, and November 15, 2011 in the United States. The artwork was designed by Robert Venosa, the artist behind the cover artworks of Focus, Traced in Air and Re-Traced, shortly before his death. All bass parts on Carbon-Based Anatomy were recorded by Sean Malone, who had also previously recorded the bass parts to Focus and Traced in Air.

Paul Masvidal describes this new EP as: 

On October 10, 2011, Cynic uploaded one song from the new EP titled "Carbon-Based Anatomy" and announced that Brandon Giffin and Max Phelps would be playing live with the band. Brandon Giffin is a former bassist for The Faceless and Max Phelps will play the second guitar and provide backing vocals. The band completed a North American and European tour in support of the EP in November and December 2011.

Commenting on a musical shift from metal elements in an interview on Prog-Sphere.com, Masvidal says:

In March 2012, Cynic released via Season of Mist an album of demos that were produced as a follow-up to Focus back in 1995, entitled The Portal Tapes.

On December 12, 2012, Cynic announced through their official website that Masvidal, Reinert and Sean Malone were entering the studio in "trio mode" to record their fifth release. They revealed the title of their third studio album and its cover on November 10, 2013, on their official Facebook page. The album, Kindly Bent to Free Us, was released on February 14, 2014.

In May 2014, Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert publicly revealed their homosexuality, a move that was broadly supported by the heavy metal community.

Breakup rumors, new music, and deaths (2015−2020) 
On September 10, 2015, Sean Reinert announced the disbandment of Cynic due to artistic and personal differences. Later that day, however, Masvidal claimed that there was no disbandment, and that Reinert did not consult with the other bandmates on the issue. He also announced that the band would continue in "one way or another." On September 18, 2015, it was confirmed that Cynic would perform without Reinert, and would recruit Trioscapes drummer Matt Lynch to fulfill a festival commitment, Germany's Euroblast Festival on October 3 as scheduled.

In 2017 Century Media released Uroboric Forms - The Complete Demo Collection 1988-1991.

On December 9, 2017, Reinert announced his split with Cynic, and stated "A settlement has been reached between Paul and I... I am at peace with the arrangement."

On January 15, 2018, Cynic digitally released "Humanoid", their first song in four years, and first one with Matt Lynch on drums instead of Sean Reinert. Loudersound listed Cynic on the 4th of July special amongst the Ten Great American Prog Rock Bands.

Reinert died on January 24, 2020. Hank Shteamer of Rolling Stone magazine wrote a tribute to Reinert shortly after his passing commemorating his contributions to Death and Cynic.

Malone died on December 9, 2020. On September 3, 2021, Paul Masvidal revealed that Malone died by suicide, as well as announced the release of a new version of "Integral" featuring a bass track recorded by Malone as tribute.

Ascension Codes (2021−present) 

On September 15, 2021, Cynic announced a new album titled Ascension Codes. A track from the album, "Mythical Serpents", was also released. The album was released on November 26, 2021. It was elected by Metal Hammer as the 3rd best progressive metal album of 2021. The song "Mythical Serpents" was elected by Loudwire as the 9th best metal song of 2021.

Musical style  
Cynic's first recordings feature a more punk rock, thrash metal, and hardcore punk sound, but in the 1990s their sound changed towards a highly complex, experimental and extremely technical form of progressive metal, while still retaining their death metal roots. Their 1990 demo displays a hyper-technical form of death/thrash, and the following 1991 Roadrunner demo bears a notable resemblance to Death and jazz-death metal pioneers Atheist, featuring two songs from Focus in cruder, more brutal form. Many influences from jazz and jazz-rock fusion can be heard on their debut album Focus. Focus has both "growls" and "robotic" vocals, using a vocoder. The offshoot Portal later released a demo recording that continues even further in the direction of progressive space rock, refining and softening up their sound.

Cynic's 2008 album Traced in Air melded together the styles and influences heard on 1993's Focus with the more progressive-oriented Portal approach. The result had Cynic put less emphasis on its extreme metal elements, with new guttural vocalist Tymon Kruidenier playing a smaller role than Tony Teegarden did on Focus. Additionally, Paul Masvidal all but abandoned his vocoder robotic vocals, opting instead for a more natural singing voice, with a subtler—although noticeable—vocoder layer that increases an octave his voice.

Noting the journey from metal to the progressives, The New York Times proclaimed in a positive review of Traced in Air that:"Cynic should be understood not so much alongside any metal bands but along with the radical harmonic progressives in the last 45 years of pop and jazz: composers like Milton Nascimento, The Beach Boys or Pat Metheny."

In 2009, Chris Dick of Decibel Magazine inducted Cynic into the Decibel Hall of Fame with nothing but praises:"Cynic weren't emulators. The aggression was there. But the mindset contrasted vastly. In fact, more was owed to crossover heroes Ludichrist and thrash metal mavericks Voivod than to any band from the Sunshine State. They were innovators. Post-Andrew, Masvidal and company developed wider and deeper tastes, seamlessly stitching in new influences like jazz fusion, progressive rock and shoegaze to create new, imaginative shapes..."

Members

Current
 Paul Masvidal – guitars, guitar synthesizer , lead vocals, vocoder , unclean vocals 
 Matt Lynch – drums 
 Dave Mackay – bass synthesizer, keyboards 

Former
 Esteban "Steve" Rincon – lead vocals 
 Russell Mofsky – guitars  
 Mark Van Erp – bass  
 Sean Reinert – drums 
 Jason Gobel – guitars, keyboards  
 Tony Choy – bass 
 Sean Malone – bass 
 Chris Kringel – bass 
 Tymon Kruidenier – guitar, unclean vocals, guitar synthesizer 
 Robin Zielhorst – bass  
 Max Phelps – guitars, backing vocals 

Former session
 Dana Cosley – keyboards, harsh vocals (live) 
 Tony Teegarden – keyboards, harsh vocals (studio and live) 
 Santiago Dobles – guitars (live) 
 Brandon Giffin – bass (live) 

Timeline

Discography 
Studio albums
 Focus (1993)
 Traced in Air (2008)
 Kindly Bent to Free Us (2014)
 Ascension Codes (2021)

EPs
 Re-Traced (2010)
 Carbon-Based Anatomy (2011)

Singles
 "Humanoid" (2018)

Compilation albums
 The Portal Tapes (2012)
 Uroboric Forms - The Complete Demo Recordings (2017)

References

Bibliography

External links

 
 

1987 establishments in Florida
American progressive metal musical groups
American technical death metal musical groups
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Heavy metal musical groups from Florida
Musical groups established in 1987
Musical groups disestablished in 1994
Musical groups from Miami
Musical groups reestablished in 2006
Roadrunner Records artists
Season of Mist artists
A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic change) or a more general change to the speech sounds that exist (phonological change), such as the merger of two sounds or the creation of a new sound. A sound change can eliminate the affected sound, or a new sound can be added. Sound changes can be environmentally conditioned if the change occurs in only some sound environments, and not others.

The term "sound change" refers to diachronic changes, which occur in a language's sound system. On the other hand, "alternation" refers to changes that happen synchronically (within the language of an individual speaker, depending on the neighbouring sounds) and do not change the language's underlying system (for example, the -s in the English plural can be pronounced differently depending on the preceding sound, as in bet[s], bed[z], which is a form of alternation, rather than sound change). Since "sound change" can refer to the historical introduction of an alternation (such as postvocalic /k/ in the Tuscan dialect, which was once [k] as in di [k]arlo 'of Carlo' but is now [h] di [h]arlo and alternates with [k] in other positions: con [k]arlo 'with Carlo'), that label is inherently imprecise and must often be clarified as referring to either phonemic change or restructuring.

Research on sound change is usually conducted under the working assumption that it is regular, which means that it is expected to apply mechanically whenever its structural conditions are met, irrespective of any non-phonological factors like the meaning of the words that are affected. Apparent exceptions to regular change can occur because of dialect borrowing, grammatical analogy, or other causes known and unknown, and some changes are described as "sporadic" and so they affect only one or a few particular words, without any apparent regularity.

The Neogrammarian linguists of the 19th century introduced the term "sound law" to refer to rules of regular change, perhaps in imitation of the laws of physics, and the term "law" is still used in referring to specific sound rules that are named after their authors like Grimm's Law, Grassmann's Law etc. Real-world sound changes often admit exceptions, but the expectation of their regularity or absence of exceptions is of great heuristic value by allowing historical linguists to define the notion of regular correspondence by the comparative method.

Each sound change is limited in space and time and so it functions in a limited area (within certain dialects) and for a limited period of time. For those and other reasons, the term "sound law" has been criticized for implying a universality that is unrealistic for sound change.

A sound change that affects the phonological system or the number or the distribution of its phonemes is a phonological change.

Principles

The following statements are used as heuristics in formulating sound changes as understood within the Neogrammarian model. However, for modern linguistics, they are not taken as inviolable rules but are seen as guidelines.

Sound change has no memory: sound change does not discriminate between the sources of a sound. If a previous sound change causes X,Y > Y (features X and Y merge as Y), a new one cannot affect only an original X.

Sound change ignores grammar: a sound change can have only phonological constraints, like X > Z in unstressed syllables. For example, it cannot only affect adjectives. The only exception to this is that a sound change may or may not recognise word boundaries, even when they are not indicated by prosodic clues. Also, sound changes may be regularized in inflectional paradigms (such as verbal inflection), in which case the change is no longer phonological but morphological in nature.

Sound change is exceptionless: if a sound change can happen at a place, it will. It affects all sounds that meet the criteria for change. Apparent exceptions are possible, because of analogy and other regularization processes, another sound change, or an unrecognized conditioning factor. That is the traditional view expressed by the Neogrammarians. In past decades, however, it has been shown that sound change does not necessarily affect all possible words. However, when a sound change is initiated, it often eventually expands to the whole lexicon. For example, the Spanish fronting of the Vulgar Latin [g] (voiced velar stop) before [i e ɛ] seems to have reached every possible word. By contrast, the voicing of word-initial Latin [k] to [g] occurred in colaphus > golpe and cattus > gato but not in canna > caña. See also lexical diffusion.

Sound change is inevitable: All languages vary from place to place and time to time, and neither writing nor media prevents that change.

Formal notation

A statement of the form

A > B

is to be read, "Sound A changes into (or is replaced by, is reflected as, etc) sound B". Therefore, A belongs to an older stage of the language in question, and B belongs to a more recent stage. The symbol ">" can be reversed, B < A, which also means that the (more recent) B derives from the (older) A":

POc. *t > Rot. f

means that "Proto-Oceanic (POc.) *t is reflected as  in the Rotuman (Rot.)".

The two sides of such a statement indicate only the start and the end of the change, but additional intermediate stages may have occurred. The example above is actually a compressed account of a sequence of changes: * first changed to  (like the initial consonant of English thin), which has since yielded  and can be represented more fully:

 t >  > f

Unless a change operates unconditionally (in all environments), the context in which it applies must be specified:

A > B /X__Y

= "A changes to B when it is preceded by X and followed by Y."

For example:

It. b > v /[vowel]__[vowel], which can be simplified to just
It. b > v /V__V (in which the V stands for any vowel)

= "Intervocalic [b] (inherited from Latin) became [v] in Italian" (such as in caballum, dēbet > cavallo 'horse', deve 'owe (3rd pers. sing.)'

Here is a second example:

PIr. [−cont][−voi] > [+cont]/__[C][+cont]

= "A preconsonantal voiceless non-continuant (voiceless stop) changed into corresponding a voiceless continuant (fricative) in Proto-Iranian (PIr.)" when it was immediately followed by a continuant consonant (a resonant or a fricative): Proto-Indo-Iranian *pra 'forth' > Avestan fra; *trayas "three" (masc. nom. pl.)> Av. θrayō; *čatwāras "four" (masc. nom. pl.) > Av. čaθwārō; *pśaws "of a cow" (nom. *paśu) > Av. fšāoš (nom. pasu). Note that the fricativization did not occur before stops and so *sapta "seven" > Av. hapta. (However, in the variety of Iranian that led to Old Persian, fricativization occurred in all clusters: Old Persian hafta "seven".)

The symbol "#" stands for a word boundary (initial or final) and so the notation "/__#" means "word-finally", and "/#__" means "word-initially":

Gk. [stop] > ∅ /__#

= "Word-final stops were deleted in Greek (Gk.)".

That can be simplified to

Gk. P > ∅ / __#

in which P stands for any plosive.

Terms for changes in pronunciation

In historical linguistics, a number of traditional terms designate types of phonetic change, either by nature or result. A number of such types are often (or usually) sporadic, that is, more or less accidents that happen to a specific form. Others affect a whole phonological system. Sound changes that affect a whole phonological system are also classified according to how they affect the overall shape of the system; see phonological change.

 Assimilation: One sound becomes more like another, or (much more rarely) two sounds become more like each other. Example: in Latin the prefix *kom- becomes con- before an apical stop () or : contactus "touched", condere "to found, establish", connūbium "legal marriage". The great majority of assimilations take place between contiguous segments, and the great majority involve the earlier sound becoming more like the later one (e.g. in connūbium, m- + n becomes -nn- rather than -mm-). Assimilation between contiguous segments are (diachronically speaking) exceptionless sound laws rather than sporadic, isolated changes.
 Dissimilation: The opposite of assimilation. One sound becomes less like another, or (much more rarely) two sounds become less like each other. Examples: Classical Latin quīnque  "five" > Vulgar Latin *kinkʷe (whence French cinq, Italian cinque, etc.); Old Spanish omne "man" > Spanish hombre. The great majority of dissimilations involve segments that are not contiguous, but, as with assimilations, the great majority involve an earlier sound changing with reference to a later one. Dissimilation is usually a sporadic phenomenon, but Grassmann's Law (in Sanskrit and Greek) exemplifies a systematic dissimilation. If the change of a sequence of fricatives such that one becomes a stop is dissimilation, then such changes as Proto-Germanic *hs to  (spelled x) in English would count as a regular sound law: PGmc. *sehs "six" > Old English siex, etc.
 Metathesis: Two sounds switch places. Example: Old English thridda became Middle English third. Most such changes are sporadic, but occasionally a sound law is involved, as Romance *tl > Spanish ld, thus *kapitlu, *titlu "chapter (of a cathedral)", "tittle" > Spanish cabildo, tilde. Metathesis can take place between non-contiguous segments, as Greek amélgō "I milk" > Modern Greek armégō.
 Lenition, softening of a consonant, e.g. stop consonant to affricate or fricative; and its antonym fortition, hardening of a consonant.
 Tonogenesis: Syllables come to have distinctive pitch contours.
 Sandhi: conditioned changes that take place at word-boundaries but not elsewhere. It can be morpheme-specific, as in the loss of the vowel in the enclitic forms of English is , with subsequent change of  to  adjacent to a voiceless consonant Frank's not here . Or a small class of elements, such as the assimilation of the  of English the, this and that to a preceding  (including the  of and when the  is elided) or : all the often , in the often , and so on. As in these examples, such features are rarely indicated in standard orthography. In a striking exception, Sanskrit orthography reflects a wide variety of such features; thus, tat "that" is written tat, tac, taj, tad, or tan depending on what the first sound of the next word is. These are all assimilations, but medial sequences do not assimilate the same way.
 Haplology: The loss of a syllable when an adjacent syllable is similar or (rarely) identical. Example: Old English Englaland became Modern English England, or the common pronunciation of probably as . This change usually affects commonly used words. The word haplology itself is sometimes jokingly pronounced "haplogy".
 Elision, aphaeresis, syncope, and apocope: all losses of sounds. Elision is the loss of unstressed sounds, aphaeresis the loss of initial sounds, syncope is the loss of medial sounds, and apocope is the loss of final sounds.
 Elision examples: in the southeastern United States, unstressed schwas tend to drop, so "American" is not  but . Standard English is possum < opossum.
 Syncope examples: the Old French word for "state" is estat, but the s disappeared, yielding état. Similarly, the loss of  in English soften, hasten, castle, etc.
 Apocope examples: the final -e  in Middle English words was pronounced, but is only retained in spelling as a silent E. In English  and  were apocopated in final position after nasals: lamb, long .
 Epenthesis (also known as anaptyxis): The introduction of a sound between two adjacent sounds. Examples: Latin humilis > English humble; in Slavic an -l- intrudes between a labial and a following yod, as *zemya "land" > Russian zemlya (земля). Most commonly, epenthesis is in the nature of a "transitional" consonant, but vowels may be epenthetic: non-standard English film in two syllables, athlete in three. Epenthesis can be regular, as when the Indo-European "tool" suffix *-tlom everywhere becomes Latin -culum (so speculum "mirror" < *speḱtlom, pōculum "drinking cup" < *poH3-tlom). Some scholars reserve the term epenthesis for "intrusive" vowels and use excrescence for intrusive consonants.
 Prothesis: The addition of a sound at the beginning of a word. Example: word-initial  + stop clusters in Latin gained a preceding  in Old Spanish and Old French; hence, the Spanish word for "state" is estado, deriving from Latin status.
 Nasalization: Vowels followed by nasal consonants can become nasalized. If the nasal consonant is lost but the vowel retains its nasalized pronunciation, nasalization becomes phonemic, that is, distinctive. Example: French "-in" words used to be pronounced , but are now pronounced , and the  is no longer pronounced (except in cases of liaison).

Examples of specific historical sound changes

 Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law
 Canaanite shift
 Dahl's law
 Grassmann's law
 Great Vowel Shift (English)
 Grimm's law
 High German consonant shift
 Kluge's law
 Ruki sound law
 Slavic palatalization
 Sound change in Japanese
 Umlaut
 Verner's law

Notes

References
 Anttila, Raimo (1989). Historical and Comparative Linguistics. John Benjamins.
 Campbell, Lyle (2004). Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. The MIT Press.
 Hale, Mark (2007). Historical Linguistics: Theory and Method. Oxford, Blackwell
 Hock, Hans Henrich (1991). Principles of Historical Linguistics. Mouton De Gruyter.
 McDorman, Richard E. (1999). Labial Instability in Sound Change. Organizational Knowledge Press.
 Morley, Rebecca (2019). Sound Structure and Sound Change: A Modeling Approach. Berlin: Language Science Press. . . Open Access. http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/251
 Sihler, Andrew L. (2000). Language History: An Introduction. John Benjamins.

Historical linguistics
Phonology Change is the fourth album by The Dismemberment Plan.  It was released on October 23, 2001 on DeSoto Records.  It was recorded by J. Robbins at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, Virginia and it was mixed by Chad Clark.

Musical style
Compared to The Dismemberment Plan's previous album Emergency & I, Change is more somber musically, with more introspective lyrics. Lead singer Travis Morrison has called it his "night album," saying in an interview with Stylus Magazine:

Reception and legacy

Change was met with universal critical acclaim. On the review aggregation website Metacritic, the album has an 83 out of 100 based on ten reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Nick Southall of Stylus Magazine called the album more focused than Emergency & I, writing, "With Change, however, The Dismemberment Plan feel little need to show off with self-conscious musical ostentation and excess, instead choosing to focus themselves on making a fantastic, understated and involving record." Pitchforks founder Ryan Schreiber praised the album's more sentimental sound, writing, "But metamorphosis can be a beautiful thing, and like the butterfly retains a part of the caterpillar, Change retains a part of the pre-mutated Dismemberment Plan. You see, they're still the same band they always were. They're just prettier now." Ted Alvarez of AllMusic also commended the album's new sound, writing, "It's difficult to chart the Dismemberment Plan's next move; their boundless creativity is their only fence. They could turn down an entirely new musical path, or they could always revisit their equally brilliant old territory. Either way, listeners are in for an original musical experience."

Michael O'Brien of PopMatters, on the other hand, was less positive about the album's new sound, writing, "For anyone who loved Emergency & I, or any of The Dismemberment Plan's other two records, Change sounds like The Dismemberment Plan on Quaaludes." O'Brien also called the album "an enjoyable record, a necessary record in the evolution of the band, but far from an essential listen." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave the album a three-star honorable mention rating, indicating "an enjoyable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well treasure."

Change was named the 14th best album of 2001 by Pitchfork. The same website also placed the album at number 97 on their list of the top 200 albums of the 2000s.

Track listing

Personnel
The following people contributed to Change

The Dismemberment Plan
 Eric Axelson – bass, keyboards
 Jason Caddell – guitar, keyboards
 Joe Easley – drums
 Travis Morrison – vocals, guitar, keyboards

Additional personnel
 Bill Barbot - Label Design
 Chad Clark - Mixing
 Kim Coletta - Label Design
 J. Robbins - Engineer

See also
List of works in irregular time signatures

References

External links
 

2001 albums
The Dismemberment Plan albums
DeSoto Records albums
Albums produced by J. Robbins