Parade of Chaos — Zao — The Gold Standard

Parade of Chaos is Zao's sixth studio album, and it was made by a band that had, for most purposes, already fallen apart. Solid State, Tooth & Nail's heavy label, put it out in July 2002. It's ten songs in just under thirty-eight minutes, credited to the whole band. We give it a 7/10.

How it came together

The title isn't a metaphor. In December 2001, Zao "broke up" on stage at a show in Pittsburgh. Drummer Jesse Smith couldn't make it through the set, and tensions that had been building for a long time boiled over. Smith went back to Solid State, and Tooth & Nail paid for two more Zao projects: a brand new album and a re-recording of the original lineup's All Else Failed.

Only three people played on Parade of Chaos. Smith handled drums, some guitar and the clean vocals, Scott Mellinger played guitar and bass, and Daniel Weyandt sang. It was made the same way as the self-titled album the year before. Smith and Mellinger wrote in the studio, and Weyandt stayed away until it was time to record his vocals. Smith and Mellinger considered other singers, but Ryan Downey of Burn It Down convinced Smith that Weyandt had to be on the record.

Barry Poynter produced it with Smith and Mellinger, and engineered and mixed it at his studio, Poynter's Palace, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Brian Gardner mastered it.

What you're hearing

That backstory makes the record sound like it should be a mess. It isn't. Steven Powless of Jesus Freak Hideout noticed something that sets it apart. Apart from the band's pre-1998 work, it's the only Zao album he knew of tuned to drop D rather than drop C. That gives it a quicker, punchier feel. Smith plays a real acoustic kit here, not the V-Drums of the self-titled album, and keeps the beats simple.

The Buzzing opens at full speed. Powless compared its energy to Skin Like Winter, and Lambgoat's reviewer heard an up-tempo, almost poppy beat that made it refreshing. Suspend/Suspension slows into the familiar grind and runs almost six minutes. Powless read it as being about a friend's suicide. The title track is the highlight, two minutes and forty seconds that Lambgoat compared to Anthrax or Pantera.

Angel Without Wings is as close as Zao gets to a ballad, though it's still an up-tempo rocker. Powless wrote that it's about someone very close to Weyandt who has always been there for him, and that it's the only song from this album the band seems to play live. Killing Cupid and Free the Three go back to thrash with breakdowns. Free the Three is angry about the West Memphis Three, the young men convicted of murdering three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. When the three were freed in August 2011, Zao retired the song, saying it was "no longer needed."

Then it gets strange. Man in the Womb is acoustic guitar under a voice Powless guessed belongs to Smith. He said it sounds like "Marilyn Manson trying to cover Johnny Cash," and that it somehow works. A Pirate's Prayer is the last all-out rocker, with a catchy breakdown. The Ballad of Buddy Bigsby is a short techno instrumental, and How Are the Weak Free closes on a slow, ominous note.

What the critics said

Most reviews were warm. Lambgoat was the most excited. "This disc is incredible," its reviewer wrote, adding that he was "amazed by the imagination Zao shows in breaking the pre-conceived notions of what hardcore (or even hard music in general) should sound like." Cross Rhythms' Ben Lilford said the music was, for the most part, "completely unrelenting," and finished by saying the album "is as good as they come."

Powless came to it later, in 2011, and called it possibly the band's "most underrated effort." He called it "a shining jewel in their discography," while admitting few people would pick it as the essential Zao album.

MetalBite pushed back hard. Its review said the album "really doesn't even sound like" Zao. It called Smith's drumming "completely uninspired" and many of Mellinger's guitar parts "lackluster," and said the electronic passages were "a mistake." It scored the album 6.8 out of 10.

Faith in the background

By 2002 Zao wasn't preaching. Smith had already steered the band away from the sermons of the first lineup, and Weyandt's lyrics had turned personal. Frustration, loss and futility run through this album, as Powless put it. The one real hint of faith he found is in A Pirate's Prayer, where Weyandt sings, "But the candle burns alone. It guides us safely home." Powless heard it as a possible reference to Christ, and that's about as far as the record goes.

How it did

Parade of Chaos reached No. 21 on Billboard's Top Christian Albums and No. 25 on Heatseekers Albums. After it came out, Weyandt, Mellinger, Smith and a returning Russ Cogdell went out on the Burn It Down and Walk Away Tour, billed as Zao's final tour, with Underoath, Unearth and Dead Poetic. It was technically in support of this album, but no songs from it made the set list.

A planned vinyl release was scrapped in 2013 over publishing rights. A remastered vinyl edition finally appeared in 2023, with essays from Weyandt, Mellinger and Smith.

Where the score lands

So why a seven? It's tight, fast and short, and the title track, The Buzzing and A Pirate's Prayer hold up next to anything from the self-titled album. For a record made by just three members while tensions ran high in the band, that's an achievement. Why not an eight? Man in the Womb and The Ballad of Buddy Bigsby feel like sketches, and the electronic outro of Suspend/Suspension doesn't earn its length. And why not a six? Because the drop-D speed gives it an energy Zao hadn't had in a while, and it deserves better than MetalBite's 6.8.

Watch

Zao didn't make a music video for any song on Parade of Chaos. The band's first official video came two years later. So these are the closest official Zao videos, both from the next era with Weyandt still singing. First is The Rising End, from The Funeral of God (2004). Second is My Love, My Love (We've Come Back from the Dead), from The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here (2006). Neither song is on this album.