ARTIST: Zao
TITLE: The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here
LABEL: Ferret
GENRE: Metal
BITRATE: 241kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 37min total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-06-13
RIP DATE: 2006-05-25

Track List

01. Cancer Eater                    2:39
02. Physician Heal Thyself          3:56
03. Everything You Love Will Soon   3:07
Fly Away
04. It's Hard Not To Shake With A   3:53
Gun In Your Mouth
05. Kingdom Of Thieves              3:24
06. Killing Time 'Til Its Time To   3:02
Die
07. There Is No Such Thing As       3:06
Paranoia
08. Purdy Young Blondes With        3:56
Lobotomy Eyes
09. My Love, My Love (We've Come    2:48
Back From The Dead)
10. American Sheets On The          2:47
Deathbed
11. A Last Time For Everything      5:15

Release Notes:

"If the melodic end of the kingdom has been taken by Killswitch Engage then the extreme
end 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 Steve
Albini (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 "The
Funeral Of God."

Zao's storied career was documented on the two-disc "The Lesser Lights Of Heaven" DVD
and the luminaries of today's heavy music scene are well aware of their debt to the
band. Underoath and Unearth opened for Zao. Thrice and Fall Out Boy listened to Zao
while growing up. As I Lay Dying invited Dan Weyandt to guest on their last album and
Matt 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 proximity
to 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 the
bespectacled filmmaker lives and breathes within Zao, a band whose backwoods roots
have allowed them to stay one step ahead of the trends by staying true to their
isolated 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 of
the band fell apart shortly after the 1997 Cornerstone Festival, Zao as it would come
to 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 and
turned them upside down. Thunderous, epic, and full of passion, the album was driven
by vocals that exorcised singer Daniel Weyandt's demons as if his life depended on the
songs. His words reshaped a personal history wrought with tragedy, suicide and death
into beautiful musings that connected with their brutal honesty and naked
self-observation.

Guitarists Russ Cogdell and Brett Detar, and original drummer Jesse Smith, played the
songs with a passion to match Dan Weyandt's soul-wrenching lyrics as the now
Greensburg 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 The
Juliana Theory) it began a song-writing partnership with Weyandt that persists to
this day. Smith's West Virginian friend Rob Horner filled the long-vacant bass
position before the band made "Liberate Te Ex Inferis (Save Yourself From Hell)," an
album that redefined the sound of an era AGAIN and created one of the band's biggest
live hits, "Savannah."

Zao's next album, "Self-Titled," was recorded by only Dan, Scott and Jesse and
featured a vast amount of experimentation with electronics, dark soundscapes, and
melodic interludes. "A Tool To Scream" and the lovelorn letter that is "Five Year
Winter" eclipsed all they had done before, while "At Zero" is the kind of
devastating album closer that brings to mind Metallica's "Dyer's Eve" or "Damage
Inc." After the album's release, Zao toured with a new singer, Corey Darst, who did
an admirable job mimicking Dan's voice but never captured the same energy. In
December 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 Jesse
returned 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 Are
The 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 as
their "farewell" the band learned, as ever, that they simply could not put their
passions to rest. Despite the turmoil, the distance between the Greensburg members
and Smith, and all of the trials and tribulations of being in a touring band, Zao
arose again.

In 2003, Dan, Scott, Russ, Jesse and Rob cut a series of demos for a fledgling label
that never got off the ground. Ferret Music signed the band instead, but not before
Dan drifted from the band one last time. Society's Finest singer Joshua Ashworth
stepped in on tour for a while, but Scott was already on the phone asking Dan back
into 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 and
Stephen Peck, to fill the vacant bass and drum positions and recorded "The Funeral
Of God." An ambitious concept album which envisions a world where God decides to
abandon humanity the way that much of mankind has abandoned Him, the album heralded
the 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 well
as major accolades in the metal press. Yes, at last, recognition! And finally, like
their heroes Johnny Cash and Nick Cave, people started to realize that the kind of
art 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 in
2005, and toured with Dillinger Escape Plan and Every Time I Die. Longtime tour
manager 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 Gretz
became the band's new drummer before they toured the UK and America with Bleeding
Through. After a couple of weeks on the 2005 Warped Tour, a knee-injury sidelined
Cogdell and ultimately led to his decision to leave Zao once again. In the fall of
2005, 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 him
at his Chicago studio, and the band (all four of them longtime fans of his
recordings) obliged. With an album's worth of songs fine-tuned by Scott and Jeff
over several months, with Marty's input apparent as well and Dan's lyrics and
vocals stronger than ever, the band laid down what promises to be another landmark
work: "The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here."

"Physician Heal Thyself," "American Sheets On The Deathbed," "A Last Time For
Everything" and "My Love, My Love We've Come Back From The Dead" are just a
handful of the newly energized songs the band will unleash upon the world with this
summer's new album, set for release after Zao co-headlines the 2006 Ferret Music
Tour.

Get ready. Like the Greek word for which the band was named, Zao is truly "ALIVE."