Band:	Otep
Album:	House Of Secrets
Style:	Alternative metal, Nu metal
Release date:	July 2004

01. Requiem
02. Warhead
03. Buried Alive
04. Sepsis
05. House Of Secrets
06. Hooks & Splinters
07. Gutter
08. Autopsy Song
09. Suicide Trees
10. Nein
11. Self-Made
12. Shattered Pieces

I'm glad I only spent $4 on House Of Secrets, because I was incredibly disappointed with it. I know for a fact that Otep has good material out there; I have heard it before. It is on the radio, on TV, and on the Internet - so why isn't it on my album? Where did all the music go? House Of Secrets sounds like Otep tried to record the soundtrack to a Japanese torture film after falling off a cliff.

Perhaps the first thing that strikes you about House Of Secrets is that there are almost no actual songs on it. Most of the tracks on this album follow a basic formula:

1) Otep Shamaya mumbles indistinctly about child abuse.
2) Random grunts, cries, and sampled movie dialogue join the mumbling.
3) "BLAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH," as the rest of the band suddenly wakes up and starts indiscriminately pounding away at their instruments.
4) More mumbling.
5) Sigh of relief, as you realize it's finally over.

It is safe to say that most of this album's 44 minutes are taken up by Otep grunting and groaning like a burning, typhus-ridden child, and not in a good way, either. It sounds like she literally phoned it in. The vocals are so scratchy and static-laced that Otep probably stood on the opposite side of town and "sang" while someone held up a walkie-talkie to the microphones. So much of House Of Secrets is dominated by Otep shrieking like a bat being strangled that it takes away from the 30-second snippets of music that float to the surface from time to time. About half of "Buried Alive" is taken up by Otep wailing "I hate my liiiiiiffffeee!!!!" At this point, lady, I kind of hate your life, too.

Of course, this album is not a complete waste of your time. When the rest of the band remembers that Otep is supposed to play Metal, they pick up the pace and produce something that, while sludgy and loose, has definite promise. "Warhead" is a halfway decent tune, as is "Hooks And Splinters." If you completely skip "Requiem," "Gutter," and "Suicide Trees," you have something a little more manageable on your hands.

In the end, what House Of Secrets amounts to is a couple of minutes of respectable metal surrounded by several minutes of mediocre sludge surrounded by a long chain of muffled snorts and sneezes. It could be much worse, but if you have a few extra bucks, euros, pounds, etc. lying around, don't blow it all on this dreck. House Of Secrets is Heavy, Overwrought, Under-thought Sludge Even Otep's Fans Should Evade, 'Cause Roughly Every Track Sucks.