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Zozobra is a peculiarly New Mexican ritual that has been the climax of the Fiestas de Santa Fe every autumn since the mid-1920s: a deliberately creepy looking wooden effigy some three stories tall, embedded with fireworks, sparklers, and noisemakers is surrounded by pieces of paper on which locals have written their most bothersome inner secrets and pains to be destroyed by the purifying fire.
Zozobra is a cathartic but undeniably strange blend of The Wicker Man, Mexican Catholicism. and heavy drinking, followed by the sort of local street fair that involves fried food on a stick. (New Mexicans consider the far more recent Burning Man Festival a magnet for effete poseurs and wannabe hipsters.) So naturally Zozobra is an awesome name for an experimental stoner metal act as well. Zozobra's roots are in an earlier band, Old Man Gloom (the English name for the effigy) which formed in Santa Fe in the late '90s before relocating to Boston several years later. Zozobra is a duo consisting of Old Man Gloom's rhythm section, bassist Caleb Scofield and drummer Santos Montano, formed after the breakup of Scofield's other band, the major-label emo act Cave In, in 2006. Originally conceived as a solo project for Scofield, who had not been the primary writer in either of his other bands, Montano was drafted after the bassist had completed work on the majority of the debut album by himself. After the release of Harmonic Tremors on Hydra Head Records in early 2007, guitarists Adam McGrath (the Cave In) and Jim Carroll (Clouds) were added to complete a touring lineup of the band. ~ Stewart Mason