Zao is many things. Musically they are perennial innovators, and have never failed to surprise with heavier, more emotive releases maintained over three decades of the most caustic metalcore in the game.
That’s an impressive inertial feat considering the sound and scene they helped to shape has evolved with time. What’s more is the band have become somewhat of a DIY model citizen in recent years, demonstrating how one can stay viable while never forgetting one’s roots.
In an age where culturally significant regional distinctions are increasingly diminished through perverse notions of interconnectedness by surveillance capitalists, machines that are supposed to have learned what is essential to us have instead stripped away at precisely the kind of human communities Zao pays homage to with their latest release: Pillars.
Across these four covers, the band not only honors those shoulders they’ve stood on but gives them the ultimate endorsement, namely time and attention for new or unaware generations to share in what formed the basis of a band that is foundational themselves.
There is a restorative power in acknowledging that no one is truly an island in the arts and elsewhere that is given in deed here; lovingly, and with eyes directed toward the long view. Dan Weyandt, the legendary frontman himself describes what Zao set out to do with this EP:
“These four bands/songs influenced us in ways that run deeper than | can fully explain. The riffs,
the rhythms, the way songs were built, the urgency and style of the vocals, the conviction and chaos
on stage—so much of what found its way into us all started here with them. Our Western Pennsylvania Big Four. They were pillars of a scene that felt like a lightning strike in the mid-to-late ’90s. Something very rare and powerful that formed in our area…”
At this point it would be difficult to ignore the element in the larger American hardcore scene driven by Evangelical or otherwise Protestant Christianity; culminating in large, often mixed-bill festivals such as Cornerstone Festival during the 2000s.
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While many of the most visible bands associated with this movement, such as Underoath, Norma Jean, and others have influenced succeeding waves of musical disciples, often they have become detractors themselves or ultimately neutral to the concept thematically. Nonetheless, this unique and fleeting period of cultural overlap has shown itself to be a fascinating and important historical consideration made even more salient with this release. Zao has clearly been many things, but they continue to be real ones.
(Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out more from Haunt on the At Home With Monsters Bandcamp here or on the Corus app here.)