Metalcore mainstay and Solid State Records alum Zao is preparing to dispatch their first new full-length in seven years, The Well-Intentioned Virus. Following last year’s comeback single from the cacophonous crew, “Xenophobe” b/w “Fear Itself,” the new album will be released on Dec. 9 via the band’s own Observed/Observer Recordings. “Xenophobe” will appear on the record in a newly-mixed form along with ten other fresh tracks. The Well-Intentioned Virus was recorded and mixed by Dave Hidek at Pennsylvania’s Treelady Studios.
Zao currently includes longtime vocalist Daniel Weyandt and veteran guitarists Scott Mellinger and Russ Cogdell along with drummer Jeff Gretz and bassist Martin Lunn. The same lineup played on their last album, 2009’s Awake? (minus Cogdell), who was in and out of Zao for the past few years. Prior to Awake?, the band released The Fear is What Keeps Us Here (2006) and The Funeral of God (2004) on Ferret Music, succeeding their now-legendary seven-album run on Solid State/Tooth and Nail that contained the seminal “2nd Era” trilogy of Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest (1998), Liberate Te Ex Inferis (1999), and Self-Titled (2001).
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