Octavia Sperati Winter Enclosure
Candlelight Records CDL159 June 14th, 2005
By Jason Jordan
All right, lets get all the crap out of the way first: Octavia Sperati is an all-female band with good-looking members, Winter Enclosure is their thirty-six minute debut album, the latter is gothic metal with hints of doom in place, and they sound similar to a more dreary, heavier Lacuna Coil sans male vocals. Oh, and another thing, I have no idea what Octavia Sperati means, nor do I care. With that said, I wasnt significantly affected by the ladies efforts on this particular outing.
Mostly, the female quintet is content to lace their compositions with distorted guitars, ambient synths, and melancholic vox. Unfortunately, there are no growls to be found on Winter Enclosure, and Im definitely a fan of multiple, vocal takes unless the front(wo)man is incredibly albeit superhumanly mesmerizing. Wergelands dreamy-yet-dejected musings are well done but, like I said, I wouldve preferred some differentiation. Hymn is an interlude thats mundane, but more often than not the girls abilities are realized in numbers such as Lifelines of Depth, Future Is, and Wasted on the Living. The opening melody in the latter is barely reminiscent of Amorphis, and at times the band cross into Nightwishs musical territory. The sadness is magnified on Without Air (Before), which segues into Without Air (After). Wergeland is at her best on the aforementioned tracks, and the use of piano is just brilliant. Its too bad that the rest of Winter Enclosure is laid to waste by the Without Air twins.
Though I have no reservations admitting that Octavia Sperati trump acts like Lacuna Coil and Evanescence, that argument probably wont convince you to go out and hunt down the groups debut. After all, being better than current, female-fronted gothic metal troupes is not an insurmountable task nowadays. These chicks (sorry feminists) have flashed me their talent with this release, and Im subsequently optimistic about their future. Now, I guess the only thing left to do is schedule a face-to-face interview.
7/10
Official Octavia Sperati Website
Official Candlelight Records Website
Candlelight Records CDL159 June 14th, 2005
By Jason Jordan
All right, lets get all the crap out of the way first: Octavia Sperati is an all-female band with good-looking members, Winter Enclosure is their thirty-six minute debut album, the latter is gothic metal with hints of doom in place, and they sound similar to a more dreary, heavier Lacuna Coil sans male vocals. Oh, and another thing, I have no idea what Octavia Sperati means, nor do I care. With that said, I wasnt significantly affected by the ladies efforts on this particular outing.
Mostly, the female quintet is content to lace their compositions with distorted guitars, ambient synths, and melancholic vox. Unfortunately, there are no growls to be found on Winter Enclosure, and Im definitely a fan of multiple, vocal takes unless the front(wo)man is incredibly albeit superhumanly mesmerizing. Wergelands dreamy-yet-dejected musings are well done but, like I said, I wouldve preferred some differentiation. Hymn is an interlude thats mundane, but more often than not the girls abilities are realized in numbers such as Lifelines of Depth, Future Is, and Wasted on the Living. The opening melody in the latter is barely reminiscent of Amorphis, and at times the band cross into Nightwishs musical territory. The sadness is magnified on Without Air (Before), which segues into Without Air (After). Wergeland is at her best on the aforementioned tracks, and the use of piano is just brilliant. Its too bad that the rest of Winter Enclosure is laid to waste by the Without Air twins.
Though I have no reservations admitting that Octavia Sperati trump acts like Lacuna Coil and Evanescence, that argument probably wont convince you to go out and hunt down the groups debut. After all, being better than current, female-fronted gothic metal troupes is not an insurmountable task nowadays. These chicks (sorry feminists) have flashed me their talent with this release, and Im subsequently optimistic about their future. Now, I guess the only thing left to do is schedule a face-to-face interview.
7/10
Official Octavia Sperati Website
Official Candlelight Records Website
