As someone who’s candidly gone on record about mental health in the past, it’s always a gamble for me to dive into an album that heavily focuses on such a difficult subject. It’s not often that it’s treated with the necessary weight and care that it undoubtedly deserves, and more often than not, for every one An Isolated Mind’s I’m Losing Myself, there are about 50 of these littering the scene, taking up way too much space and energy. If there’s one band, though, that can tackle it with grace and honesty, it’s Pennsylvania’s Zao. Vocalist Dan Weyandt has never shied away from being honest about his personal struggles,1 and on their twelfth full-length, The Crimson Corridor, he and rest the of Zao lay it all bare.
It doesn’t hurt that this is also one of Zao’s strongest collections of songs to date. After the incredible instrumental “Into the Jaws of Dread” wraps up, you’re thrown right into the chaos immediately with “Ship of Theseus,” a brutal, lyrically self-referential tune where guitarists Scott Mellinger and Russ Cogdell throw heaps of riff and atonal harmonics left and right while bassist Martin Lunn and drummer Jeff Gretz tie it all together with some of the tightest rhythms the band has ever constructed. And once again, Weyandt sounds absolutely caustic and venomous here, spewing every line with the same intensity and power from back in the band’s early days.
What resonates the loudest, however, is the line, “Nothing can ever stay the same.” The foreshadowing of that one line is important, because immediately afterwards, “Croatoan,” easily one of the sludgiest songs the band has ever penned, lurches forth, signaling one of The Crimson Corridor’s many shifts in mood and structure, but still somehow fitting in the band’s overall vision and quality. From there, the album fluctuates between musical callbacks to the days of Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest and Liberate Te Ex Inferis (“The Final Ghost,” “Nothing’s Form,” the title track) and their newer, more adventurous leanings towards sludge and post-metal (“Creator/Destroyer,” the 10-minute epic closer “The Web”). Not once, however, does the quality ever dip to levels of being skippable or redundant.
That said, it’s not an easy album to navigate by a long shot. This is a 60-minute mammoth, and for some, “The Web,” while an incredible closer and one of the band’s longest songs to date, if not the longest, might be a bit much due to the size of the song, the length of the album, and especially the raw take of the album’s subject matter. Again, as someone who’s battled depression and anxiety and came out the other end intact,2 The Crimson Corridor reminded me of those times when things were looking the most grim. Still, the band handled the subject matter in a way that’s not only impactful, but also delicately respectful and honest. Then again, I didn’t expect anything less from Zao on that front. Just know that going in.
So where does this place in their catalog? If you dug Where Blood and Fire and Liberate, but also appreciated the raw, visceral nature of the criminally underrated The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here, The Crimson Corridor comes a’calling for you. It continues on the stellar streak Zao accomplished with 2016’s The Well-Intentioned Virus while being an almost completely different beast altogether, and also seeing Zao turning the corner to new areas to explore. Much like fellow luminaries Converge, Zao is that rare example of a classic metalcore act not afraid to grow out of their sound and forge their own path, and if The Crimson Corridor is any indication, the path ahead will be intriguing.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: v0 mp3
Label: Observed/Observer Recordings
Websites: officialzao.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/ZAO.Official
Releases Worldwide: April 9th, 2021
Cherd of Doom
It feels strange, being in a position to review a Zao record in 2021. Way back, before the Before Time, in the mid to late 90s, I was a wee fundamentalist Christian in the Midwest who was drawn to heavy music but felt “convicted” about listening to metal. Thank the Lord for Spirit Filled Hardcore, amiright? In that distant life, I was a youth group leader at a mega church, though only an adult in the legal sense myself. I went to the same shows as many of my charges in church basements, the local punk and hardcore venue 3 and in the muddy fields of Bushnell, Il, at the Cornerstone Festival.4 If you knew the scene, you’ll know the bands, and Zao was one of the big ones. The Pittsburg quartet began extracting themselves from that world well before I did. I remember being disappointed when their lyrics left proselytizing behind with the arrival of vocalist Dan Weyandt, even though my mind was blown by the landmark Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest. Young me would have been horrified to know that years later I’d be leaving the cozy confines of Christianity along with them.
Zao are survivors. I listen to them now for enjoyment that goes far beyond nostalgia, because unlike so many bands from that time and scene, they never stopped releasing music, and they never let themselves get comfortable. Now, just shy of 30 years on, they remain relevant in metal despite their origins, despite their “metalcore” tag, because they never stopped pushing themselves to experiment, refine and reinvent. Even better, they stayed HEAVY. The Crimson Corridor, their twelfth full-length, is once again a reinvention. I view this first and foremost as a sludgy post-metal album that even strays into doom territory at times. Several tracks, including opening instrumental “Into the Jaws of Dread” and closer “The Web” feature the signature post clean builds and distorted releases, with the most impressive example coming on “R.I.P.W.” This doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned their unique metalcore sound. Lead single “Ship of Theseus” and later cuts like “Lost Star” will surely lead to a slew of pit fatalities as soon as concert moratoriums are lifted.
Though they’ve never shied away from surprising song structures, Zao have reached a different level of subtlety on The Crimson Corridor thanks to the post-ish leanings, cleaner passages and slower tempos. The uneasy, seasick undulation between clean and distorted stretches on “Craotoan” are punctuated in the song’s second half with an absolutely awesome bouncing riff both like and unlike what you’d expect from the band. Throughout the album, Zao appear to have found a new gear from which to operate: lower and slower, but better for pulling a payload of dread behind it. On centerpiece “The Crimson Corridor,” the band spreads dark, leathery doom wings over their thematic thesis of waking nightmares and the journey through them. “Nothing’s Form” performs a balancing act between doom and hardcore riffing before giving in entirely to a slow plod and lilting guitar line which is in turn cut off abruptly by the stomping intro of “Creator/Destroyer.” Ten minute closer “The Web” is entirely unlike what I’ve come to expect from the band, with a shockingly smooth, cathartic, even pretty post-metal structure and a soaring, emotional payoff.
There are a lot of high points across the nearly hour runtime of The Crimson Corridor, but I do have a few relatively minor sticking points with the album. It’s considerably longer than any previous Zao release, and while the new post-metal direction justifies that a bit, there’s fat to trim. The instrumental intro sets the stage well enough, but I find it as skippable as most similar tracks on any number of albums. It builds into a nice showcase for drummer Jeff Gretz, but he’s solid throughout. As good as “The Web” is, it could use an edit of a minute or two, and third single “The Final Ghost” doesn’t add anything of interest to the album that other tracks don’t. It’s generally weaker than the material immediately surrounding it and on my later listens became another skip point. In these nearly 60 minutes, there’s a 45 minute album that would cruise into my year end list, but I can’t ignore the areas of bloat.
Length issues aside, this is an impressive album. It would be shocking for a formerly Christian metalcore band to release such a powerful album almost 30 years into their trajectory if it was any band other than Zao. For them, it’s par for the course. There’s a kinship connection that’s hard to explain between those who have escaped religious fundamentalism. Given our shared history, I’m proud of them the way you’re proud of hometown kids done good in the real world. I’m thankful that when our editors reached out for a promo—something we don’t do unless a writer REALLY wants to review something—Zao graciously obliged, and I’m thankful to be sharing this review with Grymm, who comes at the band from an equally long but totally different history. It’s been a pleasure.
Rating: 3.5/5.0