You think you know OTEP? Think again. With the release of The Ascension, their third full-length outing, the band challenged itself to avoid clichés and classifications and find a new landscape of sound and vision. “We said ‘genre limits and music fads be damned, let’s write music that is important to us and that motivates us,” explains Otep Shamaya, the band’s namesake and driving force. “I wanted to write songs we believe in and let nothing stop us from building the album we want to make.” OTEP doesn’t merely make records, the band creates musically intricate soundscapes of the soul and society. On The Ascension frontwoman Otep is both inciteful and insightful, with songs ranging from the aggro call to arms of “Confrontation” to the vulnerable ‘Perfectly Flawed.’ The Ascension is infused with a meticulous care to detail, the CD’s 13 songs both free and freeing for the listener and the band. Otep explains: “I set out to reclaim the mindset I had when I wrote the first record (“Sevas Tra”). Bands have another level of intensity and risk-taking when writing their first record. I wanted to recapture the sound of that hunger and infuse it with as much raw passion and purpose as possible.”

 

DISCOGRAPHY: 

The_Ascension (2007) 

Wurd Becomes Flesh (EP) (2005) – Otep’s Spoken word (self released) 

House of Secrets (2004) 

Sevas Tra (2002) 

Jihad (EP) (2001)