Otep and Bury Your Dead
Posted By Ing on March 4, 2010
Over at Noesis, Ben has written a post or two about some female-fronted metal bands. I agree with him that the female voice has a lot to offer in the realm of hard rock and metal, and I like some of the female-fronted bands I’ve heard (I got into Nightwish based on Ben’s evaluation).
Still, it seemed to me that female singers weren’t offering a lot in the world of metal music.
Not that they can’t or shouldn’t sing metal — it just seemed to me that women weren’t. I appreciate their great voices, but I couldn’t help wishing that the few women who ventured into the arena would bring more to the music than pretty notes and friendly melodies.
Then, while checking out tour dates for Bury Your Dead (one of my new favorite bands), I found that they’ll be coming to a great little venue near me, opening for a band called Otep. I’d never heard of this band (or the other two that are with them and BYD on tour), so I figured I’d better check them out. I love Bury Your Dead’s mix of melody, heaviness, and outright brutality, but when you leave the melodic end of hardcore for the speed/grind/death subvarieties, things can get craptastic really fast, and I wanted to know if any of these bands would be assaulting me with monotonous hammerings or pseudo-satanic posing.
And Otep, as I discovered to my surprise, is led by a female singer. Named Otep.
She’s poetic, she’s blonde and pretty. You might think she’s like Jewel, just traded up for tattoos and a metal backup band, but that wouldn’t do it. Unlike Jewel, she’s very angry — but don’t start thinking Alanis Morisette, because that’s too soft by a few orders of magnitude; arthouse angst, edgy, trendy, but no threat to anybody.
This Otep, she’s kinda hardcore. She sings like she’s looking for an excuse to beat you with a baseball bat and burn your body while you’re still half-alive. And she’s smart. Great lyrics, even if they are disturbing and half-crazy sometimes. And the whole band is good. These guys can flat-out play.
So check this out and let me know what you think:
Otep: Smash the Control Machine
I recommend these tracks (but you can listen to whatever you want):
- For aggression and otherworldly howls:
1 – Rise, Rebel, Resist; 3 – Smash the Control Machine; 4 – Head of Medusa - For proof that Otep’s range isn’t limited to screaming:
10 – UR A WMN NOW
Otep and Bury Your Dead in the same building… I think I’m going to get my tickets now.
But what do you think?
Weeeeeellll…
Not really my thing, Ing. I can appreciate Otep in several ways (the general heaviness, interesting rhythms, excellent screaming technique, overall talent) but on the whole it ain’t for me (a little too much of the screaming, lyrics were overly disturbing to me, too much talky vocals as opposed to singing/melody). I actually liked UR A WMN NOW the best, but that one went the other way, a little too tame. They are definitely interesting and varied, though, and that’s cool. I just can’t get all the way into the metal/hardcore scene. Ten years ago I wouldn’t listen to any song with even the slightest bit of screaming in it. Now I can really appreciate a good scream in my music, but the hardcore stuff goes a little too far for my taste.
I thought you’d say that. :)
I see where you’re coming from. I used to be there. :) But I think I started leaning toward the hardcore end of things before you did, and I’ve gone farther over to the dark side. I like a lot of things about Otep, but they’re about as far into the *really* hardcore end of things as I care to go.
The lyrics are brilliantly written, I think, but I wish they didn’t dwell so much on things like rape and abuse and various similarly disturbing topics. I realize those are problems that music can address, but I’m not one for dwelling on them; sometimes it’s like the aural equivalent of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit or one of those depressing movies I hate to watch.
But the music…and Otep’s voice. Wow. These days I’m searching for the perfect blend of heaviness, aggression (screaming included, of course), and melody (screaming optional). Otep comes close to the sweet spot. I wouldn’t say they’re my new favorite band, but I definitely like Smash the Control Machine enough to buy it.