Disco de Otep: “House of Secrets [PA]”

I've been a die-hard Otep fan since the day I picked up the jihad ep and so I was right in line to pick up "House of Secrets". I've got to admit it, I was a little dissappointed the first few times through it.

I put it down for a while and then a week or so later, I picked it up again and started listening to it. It still is a classic like the other Otep releases, it just comes from a different place.

The first ep and album came from a dark place in the past and talked about raging against these haunting demons from the past, and with her superb talent, the releases were filled with just that. This album is more about stopping demons that could come about. It's political in some ways, as I'm sure you heard.

It is a hell of alot heavier than the other releases, the vocals are not rap-influenced poetry anymore, they are screams, bellows, and other sounds like a normal metal band. This record is alot more straight ahead metal than the others.

Joey Jordison from Slipknot did the drum tracking for most of the album, so it can be pretty intense. Filled with angry, ferocious songs that should keep people talking about Otep until the next record.

If you love Otep, you'll love this one too. If you don't like Otep (I don't know why anyone wouldn't)this is a huge difference from their other stuff, so you owe it to yourself to check it out.

This album holds a strong, underlying message... a secret within secrets. Sometimes pain beckons you to retreat into the comfort of misery, to embrace suffering until you realize your full potential... and as Otep proves the case to be true, the conceptual artistic elements of the band have expanded and has opened doors to many new dimensions. This creation mirrors an inner depth of darkness and produces a hauntingly chaotic and creepy soundtrack of art. Through turmoil, strife, and struggle you are able to meet the eternal essence of self...and thus rise from the ashes.

In all simplicity, this album is true brilliance - a masterpiece. True shadow soldiers will easily understand and applaude House of Secrets.

A total enjoyable, produced, engineered sonic work. If you have the equipment to hear this EVIL J THUNDER, CRANK IT UP. You'll fully enjoy this CD, FEEL THE BASS. The vocals by Otep Shamaya are GREAT!~ Just can't be put into words without sounding like a understatement. And of course I love the secrets they sneek into the mix, texture and rythmic waves of pleasure !!!

This album is less focused on being heavy metal music and more of an artistic statement. If you are buying it just to hear something like Blood Pigs or Battle Ready, prepare to be dissapointed. While tracks 2. Warhead 4. Sepsis 6. Hooks & Splinters and 11. Self-Made have all the fury of Jihad, the rest of the album is a nightmarish recollection of a tortured past. Although somewhat incongruent with the rage that spawned such violent music, the rest of the album plays out like a session on Freud's couch.

i will say this again Otep is one of the most affluent bands out there today. Yes their songs can go from heavy to melodic, from soothing to eerie, but all in all this is one of the few bands i have seen that has come out in the past few years who isnt afraid to talk about issues that they have, Otep the lead singer grew up in an abusive home and so yes she has a tendancy on this cd to vent it but it is only her second attempt and she didnt get it all out in one cd and i understand

The first track on this cd Requim is not for the faint of heart or those that would flinch at the sounds of being beat by a parent, the repeating words as long as your under my roof you will respect me but, this just sets the tempo for you in what is sure to be a gloomy yet uplifting expreince. This CD is for the open minded and the open minded only and this band is experimental so yes she has rap tendencies but you know something she is a poet that is what rap used to be not just this gangster sex driven music we see today and if that is the way she has to get it out she has to get it out

i spend alot of my time looking for bands that arent afraid to change and i get these looks like you still like them all the time and i will probably be getting those looks some time down the road for respecting otep and all she does but you know what I am I and i can not change that