Zao -- Awake?

6/10

You can hear the before-the-recorded-it "What If?" machine in motion for each Zao album. What if we combined metal and hardcore? What if (with the heavy influence of our art department) we make a concept album about Dante's Inferno? What if we made the most emotional, yet sterile-sounding album as possible? What if we made an album that sounded like it was from the 70's underground rock scene? What if we made a concept album about God abandoning the Earth? What if we made the rawest sounding album possible? What if we...made an album? 

Yep, 2009's Awake? seems to have no higher ambition than to be a collection of songs. It's fine. I'm pretty sure I hold Zao to an unfair, impossible standard. I want each and every one of their albums to set my imagination on fire. Awake? doesn't do that. It's a heavy album, with some singing, but mostly screaming. The bass and guitar and drums and vocals are fine. Tim Labesis, yes THAT Tim Labesis, produced this album, and it sounds, maybe for the first and only time in Zao's career, like an album another band could have recorded. I most certainly don't hate it. It just doesn't do much positive for me either. It's your average album from the disappointing year of music that was 2009. 

The one standout moment on Awake? personally happened to me that summer. I was driving alone down to the remote Grand Isle, Louisiana, in the middle of a Friday night. Back then, there was a tall drawbridge over the marsh, and as a huge ship came through, and the drawbridge opened, I was the only car sitting atop for the entire 15-minute wait. My wife was six months pregnant, and on a separate trip. As I sat in my car, high in the air over the pitch dark marsh, several miles from the ocean, Awake? came to its close on my CD player, with the final track, the spoken-word "The World Caved In." I got out of my running car, door open and stereo turned up, so that I could still hear the dark, acoustic closer over the sound of sad, lingering foghorns. I looked out at a waning moon, walked to the edge of the bridge, peered over the side into the watery blackness. I thought for a second about jumping, but then unbuckled my pants and took a piss. "The World Caved In" is definitely the best song on the album.


2009 Ferret
1. 1,000,000 Outstretched Arms of Nothing 3:39
2. Entropica 3:37
3. The Eyes Behind the Throne 3:36
4. Human Cattle Masses Marching Forward 3:39
5. Romance of the Southern Spirit 4:51
6. What Will You Find? 3:44
7. Awake? 3:41
8. Quiet Passenger Pt. 1 4:00
9. Reveal 4:53
10. Quiet Passenger Pt. 2/The World Caved In 6:53