Otep – Sevas Tra (2002)

July 20, 2024

Otep’s seemingly nonsensical ramblings have not aged well, but at least on Sevas Tra the musical section has enough chops to sustain a full record and act a baseline for her to run free. Outside of “Battle Ready” (which I heard on a promo CD back in’t day) and the tbh pretty fucking good “Blood Pig”, I’ve always considered this album to be an inescapable mire of self-loathing set to a hideous meandering backdrop of directionless nu metal tapestries. The band may be technical brilliant (the riffs are heavy as fuck and the bass/drums combo are tight as fuck) but my God this shit goes absolutely NOWHERE and everywhere all at once.

To quote the record producer from the Sopranos episode episode “A Hit is a Hit”: “Where are the fucking choruses!”

Despite the overflowing cup of cringe that is this album being what it is, one has to commend the honesty of the lyrical content, which is actually, frankly, pretty disturbing. I appreciate what they were trying to do here (comparisons to Korn are apt) and I did actually enjoy my trip back through this album, but its such a product of it’s time that it will forever be stuck there, unable to become anything more.