{"id":8582,"date":"2012-11-06T00:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T00:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=8582"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:38:01","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T14:38:01","slug":"album-review-otep-sounds-like-armageddon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-otep-sounds-like-armageddon\/","title":{"rendered":"OTEP – Sounds Like Armageddon (2012) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTEP
Sounds Like Armageddon<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nVictory (2012)<\/span>
Rating: 5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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OTEP is one of those band\u2019s you either love or hate. Frontwoman Otep Shamaya is easily one of the most polarizing figures in heavy music and the Los Angeles band\u2019s crunchy stop and start guitar and drum work and not-so-distant from rap rock vocals make them the last of the nu-metal genre to survive.<\/p>\n

Sounds Like Armageddon<\/em> is a testament to that survival as the band\u2019s decade long career has been riddled with failed label relationships, lukewarm critical reception, and a small but rabid fanbase. This is the band\u2019s first ever live album, which is surprising given the band\u2019s explosive live show has always been their strong suit. <\/p>\n

Sounds Like Armageddon<\/em> has some great moments on it. The band offers both crowd pleasers and lead singles here, ranging from the pummeling \u2018T.R.I.C.\u2019 to \u2018Battle Ready\u2019 (the album\u2019s opening track) to \u2018Filthee\u2019. All of these tunes shine and the crowd is obviously into them. The band\u2019s cover of Nirvana\u2019s (a band I would normally consider off limits for covers) \u2018Breed\u2019 is a spot on re-creation that makes me wonder what Otep Shamaya might do vocally if she played it straight and narrow. \u2018Breed\u2019 (originally from 1991\u2019s Nevermind<\/em>) suits her voice shockingly well. The other highlight is the crowd \/ band interaction on the pummeling anthem \u2018Rise, Rebel, Resist\u2019.<\/p>\n

As usual, the quest for artistic freedom gets mightily in the way here. For as much as the crowd is into about half this album, there are certainly a few moments that they aren\u2019t so outspokenly in love with. The spoken word, slow moving, chaotic sounds of \u2018Blood Pigs\u2019, \u2018Crooked Spoons\u2019 and \u2018My Confession\u2019 go nowhere and disrupt the high energy flow of the album. If there weren\u2019t so much guitar fuzz, you could likely hear the crickets chirping in the background.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the strangest thing is that only one song from the band\u2019s 2011 album Atavist<\/em> appears here, as it garnered more attention than any OTEP album since the debut. Atavist was a powerhouse of an album and I can\u2019t imagine OTEP\u2019s rabid fanbase wouldn\u2019t have eaten up more of it, and feel like it should be better represented here. <\/p>\n

Overall, I like OTEP as much now as I did when they debuted. The band are very good at what they do, but they never seem to evolve at all. They always just make lateral moves and their always controversial lyrics sound borderline juvenile a decade later. But with a new studio album, Hydra<\/em>, due in early 2013, I\u2019m still hoping for that giant leap that can make them into something more.<\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTEPSounds Like Armageddon Victory (2012)Rating: 5\/10 OTEP is one of those band\u2019s you either love or hate. Frontwoman Otep Shamaya is easily one of the most polarizing figures in heavy music and the Los Angeles band\u2019s crunchy stop and start guitar and drum work and not-so-distant from rap rock vocals make them the last of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,448],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-otep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8582"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12065,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582\/revisions\/12065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}