Otep : Releases >>
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House of Secrets [Us Import] >>
Sevas Tra >>
Otep are an LA four-piece, led by tough girl Otep Shamaya, who make one of today's filthiest rackets. Brilliantly produced by Terry Date (Pantera, Deftones), Sevas Tra moves from the deepest, dirtiest grind, through electronic atmospherics to full-on speed metal, following on from the dark likes of Nine Inch Nails and the aforementioned Pantera. The most important element here, though, is clearly Shamaya herself. Like her most obvious forerunner, Tairrie B of Manhole and Tura Satana, she screams and whines out her rage and pain, with Date's help, moving from a little-girl whimper to a bestial growl and on to an ear-splitting scream. And, again like Tairrie, she stands for female self-assertion in the face of a cruel world peopled by manipulative men (and, in the case of "Tortured", sexually deviant men). But Shamaya goes beyond Tairrie's post-Christian trauma into her own world of pagan goddesses and ecstatic festivals. Claiming to be influenced by classic authors, particularly the Beat poets (her name is an anagram of "Poet", and the album title of "Art Saves"), she believes in "trance-formation", the achievement of altered states through Otep's music. In this, she's akin to Jim Morrison at his most shamanic. Her doctrine's confused and sometimes morally dubious, but Sevas Tra is a major rush, nonetheless. --Dominic Wills
Jihad >>
Otep >>
The Ascension: Parental Advisory >>
The Ascension >>
The Ascension >>
The Ascension >>
House of Secret >>
Sevas Tra + 1 >>
