How do you differentiate yourself? You know, putting your very own stamp or something you do.
How do you take nothing and make it your own, giving it that very special touch that without your very own individuality would be nothing again?
Zaó shows us that it can take very little to differentiate you in a currently decaying genre as the metalcore genre is now a day.
Enter song one off this album Resistance kick things started with a very metal riff, very enjoyable, the steady nature of the drums are very well fitting this particular track, and the eventual fills the drummer makes are pretty remarkable.
Now one could argue that the overall sound of Zaó is pretty much your average metalcore affair, its not , in my opinion you can pretty much tell it was influenced by the first wave of Metalcore bands like an earlier (and much more average) converge, mixing pretty well the riffs of any rock/metal band and the pissed off vocals of say a young, grasper and Higher pitched Henry Rollins (namedropping what?), but its so much more than that, The sum of its parts is bigger and more pissed off than its badass parts.
This hardcore roots show off more in faster passed tracks like Foresight, and the middle part of In Love Kindness, but overall the sound of the album sticks around the mid tempo, no neck-breaking tempos here, but it never really gets too dull.
Lyric wise this bands pretty much the normal affair of Christian Metalcore, a 50/50 thing I would say, with lyrics dealing with a very humanistic point of view on religion on tracks like All Else Failed, and with lyrics of exaltation to their god and religion as with tracks like Growing In Grace & Resistance, though except for the former one, the lyrics never get too overbearing for that non-Christian audience, which is a good thing as they deal with religion in a more cryptic way most of the time.
That’s not to say this record is flawless, in fact its got quite a few holes in its armor, the biggest problem with it its that the songs pretty much sound a lot like each other, take away the eventual break like in the mid part of PS77 and I honestly could of never differentiate it from the other two songs that its smacked in the middle of (minus the fade out of PS77 to switch to Exchange).
As far as my opinion goes this record might be a very average record for most people, as bands like Converge, Botch & 7 Angels 7 Plagues have already done what these guys have done here and maybe even better, but don’t let that steer you away from it, it can be quite joyous to listen to and to find its hidden jewels, over all a pretty fun album.
