ARTIST: ZaoTITLE: The Fear Is What Keeps Us HereLABEL: FerretGENRE: MetalBITRATE: 241kbps avgPLAYTIME: 0h 37min totalRELEASE DATE: 2006-06-13RIP DATE: 2006-05-25Track List———-01. Cancer Eater 2:3902. Physician Heal Thyself 3:5603. Everything You Love Will Soon 3:07Fly Away04. It’s Hard Not To Shake With A 3:53Gun In Your Mouth05. Kingdom Of Thieves 3:2406. Killing Time ‘Til Its Time To 3:02Die07. There Is No Such Thing As 3:06Paranoia08. Purdy Young Blondes With 3:56Lobotomy Eyes09. My Love, My Love (We’ve Come 2:48Back From The Dead)10. American Sheets On The 2:47Deathbed11. A Last Time For Everything 5:15Release Notes:“If the melodic end of the kingdom has been taken by Killswitch Engage then the extremeend belongs to Zao. No question.” — Metal Hammer magazine.Zao’s new album, “The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here,” is due in June. Recorded by SteveAlbini (Nirvana, Neurosis, The Pixies) the album combines the dark and creepy vibe of“Liberate” with the rock n’ roll thunder of “Self-Titled” and the metallic fury of “TheFuneral Of God.”Zao’s storied career was documented on the two-disc “The Lesser Lights Of Heaven” DVDand the luminaries of today’s heavy music scene are well aware of their debt to theband. Underoath and Unearth opened for Zao. Thrice and Fall Out Boy listened to Zaowhile growing up. As I Lay Dying invited Dan Weyandt to guest on their last album andMatt Heafy from Trivium joined the band onstage to perform “Praise The War Machine.”Greensburg, Pennsylvania isn’t known for many things besides being in close proximityto the mall where George A. Romero filmed “Dawn Of The Dead.” And the renegade spirit,commentary on the world around us, and personal introspection that drives thebespectacled filmmaker lives and breathes within Zao, a band whose backwoods rootshave allowed them to stay one step ahead of the trends by staying true to theirisolated selves.Zao’s original incarnation formed in the mid-90s with the evangelical zeal of Focused,the fervor of Earth Crisis and the image of vintage rockabilly. When that version ofthe band fell apart shortly after the 1997 Cornerstone Festival, Zao as it would cometo change the course of heavy music was born in the fires of creative tension.“Where Blood & Fire Bring Rest” took the conventions of hardcore and heavy metal andturned them upside down. Thunderous, epic, and full of passion, the album was drivenby vocals that exorcised singer Daniel Weyandt’s demons as if his life depended on thesongs. His words reshaped a personal history wrought with tragedy, suicide and deathinto beautiful musings that connected with their brutal honesty and nakedself-observation.Guitarists Russ Cogdell and Brett Detar, and original drummer Jesse Smith, played thesongs with a passion to match Dan Weyandt’s soul-wrenching lyrics as the nowGreensburg based band (linked to the Zao of old only by West Virginian Smith)devastated stages across the country. Not since Unbroken had jaws dropped like this.When Scott Mellinger joined Zao (replacing guitarist Detar, who left to focus on TheJuliana Theory) it began a song-writing partnership with Weyandt that persists tothis day. Smith’s West Virginian friend Rob Horner filled the long-vacant bassposition before the band made “Liberate Te Ex Inferis (Save Yourself From Hell),” analbum that redefined the sound of an era AGAIN and created one of the band’s biggestlive hits, “Savannah.”Zao’s next album, “Self-Titled,” was recorded by only Dan, Scott and Jesse andfeatured a vast amount of experimentation with electronics, dark soundscapes, andmelodic interludes. “A Tool To Scream” and the lovelorn letter that is “Five YearWinter” eclipsed all they had done before, while “At Zero” is the kind ofdevastating album closer that brings to mind Metallica’s “Dyer’s Eve” or “DamageInc.” After the album’s release, Zao toured with a new singer, Corey Darst, who didan admirable job mimicking Dan’s voice but never captured the same energy. InDecember of 2001 Zao broke up onstage, ironically as Dan stood in as a “guest.”Blood & Fire did not bring rest in this case, however, and soon Dan, Scott and Jessereturned to producer Barry Poytner’s Arkansas studio and created “Parade Of Chaos,”which pushed their musical envelope even further. “The Buzzing” and “Suspend/Suspension” opened the album with alarming force while “Free The Three” and “How AreThe Weak Free” were well-suited for long drives down desolate roads.The “Burn It Down And Walk Away” tour followed, with Russ Cogdell back in the band,and saw Zao playing to bigger audiences than ever before. Although it was billed astheir “farewell” the band learned, as ever, that they simply could not put theirpassions to rest. Despite the turmoil, the distance between the Greensburg membersand Smith, and all of the trials and tribulations of being in a touring band, Zaoarose again.In 2003, Dan, Scott, Russ, Jesse and Rob cut a series of demos for a fledgling labelthat never got off the ground. Ferret Music signed the band instead, but not beforeDan drifted from the band one last time. Society’s Finest singer Joshua Ashworthstepped in on tour for a while, but Scott was already on the phone asking Dan backinto the band shortly before Smith, long enamored with side-projects, left Zao(taking Horner with him).Dan, Scott and Russ enlisted two longtime Greensburg friends, Shawn Koschik andStephen Peck, to fill the vacant bass and drum positions and recorded “The FuneralOf God.” An ambitious concept album which envisions a world where God decides toabandon humanity the way that much of mankind has abandoned Him, the album heraldedthe return of Zao to a new world where heavy music is enjoying a resurgence.“The Funeral Of God” saw the band get their first airplay on MTV2 and Fuse as wellas major accolades in the metal press. Yes, at last, recognition! And finally, liketheir heroes Johnny Cash and Nick Cave, people started to realize that the kind ofart Zao makes is not easily classifiable as Christian or secular… It’s just good.Zao headlined the Ferret Music Tour in 2004, the “Praise The War Machine” tour in2005, and toured with Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die. Longtime tourmanager Marty Lunn took over the bass position before the band co-headlined the“City Of Champions” tour with The Juliana Theory. And more recently, Jeff Gretzbecame the band’s new drummer before they toured the UK and America with BleedingThrough. After a couple of weeks on the 2005 Warped Tour, a knee-injury sidelinedCogdell and ultimately led to his decision to leave Zao once again. In the fall of2005, Scott, Dan, Marty and Jeff hit the road with Unearth and later Shadows Fall.Famed recording engineer Steve Albini invited Zao to make their new album with himat his Chicago studio, and the band (all four of them longtime fans of hisrecordings) obliged. With an album’s worth of songs fine-tuned by Scott and Jeffover several months, with Marty’s input apparent as well and Dan’s lyrics andvocals stronger than ever, the band laid down what promises to be another landmarkwork: “The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here.”“Physician Heal Thyself,” “American Sheets On The Deathbed,” “A Last Time ForEverything” and “My Love, My Love We’ve Come Back From The Dead” are just ahandful of the newly energized songs the band will unleash upon the world with thissummer’s new album, set for release after Zao co-headlines the 2006 Ferret MusicTour.Get ready. Like the Greek word for which the band was named, Zao is truly “ALIVE.”