Sevas Tra

Sevas Tra is the debut studio album by the nu metal band Otep, released in 2002. The album name, when read backwards, reads as "art saves". It debuted at number 145 on the Billboard 200.

Music and lyrics
The album is a nu metal album that features strong elements of death metal, as well as elements of groove metal, funk metal, alternative metal, rap metal, grindcore and hip-hop. The album's song "Jonestown Tea" features elements of spoken word. The vocals consist of growling, screaming  and rapping. The growling on the album is one example of the album's elements of grindcore and death metal. Also, the album has guitar riffs heard in the death metal genre. The album has been compared to Cannibal Corpse, Metallica, Skinlab and Slipknot. Allmusic described the album as "heavier than Slipknot". The album's lyrical topics include organized religion and abuse. The band's vocalist Otep Shamaya said that the album Sevas Tra "is a story about life's struggles and what you do to overcome them, or what you do to be swallowed by them." The album's song "Jonestown Tea" is about child sexual abuse and is also believed to be about Otep Shamaya being sexually abused by her father. The song was used by a teenager who, along with her sister, was sexually abused by their father, to inform her mother about her father's sexual abuse. Otep Shamaya spoke about the song "Jonestown Tea" saying I wanted to do something dramatic for the record. At one of our rehearsals, management was there and some people from a label scouting us, and we just started (to improvise) ... By the end of the song, which was about 13 or 14 minutes later, people's jaws were on the floor. I'd kind of gone off into this other place and didn't really realize what had occurred. Something remarkable had taken place. Once we'd gone through that and everyone was like, 'Where did that come from? I decided that this was something important that I wanted to express and communicate on the record. Otep Shamaya called organized religion "a lie". Many people have mistaken the song "Menocide" to be against men. Otep Shamaya said that it isn't hateful towards men and that it goes against women abuse, including violence against women.

Release
Sevas Tra was released on June 18, 2002 by Capitol Records. the first 75,000 copies of the album were available as a limited edition tri-fold digipak. A month after its release, the album had sold 15,000 copies in the United States.

Critical reception
The album received mixed reviews. Allmusic gave the album a 4 out of 5 stars rating writing "Sevas Tra is a record that raises the high watermark for goth metal." CMJ gave the album an extremely positive review.

Personnel

 * Main personnel
 * Otep Shamaya - vocals
 * Rob Patterson - guitar
 * Jason "eViL j" McGuire - bass, backing vocals
 * Mark "Moke" Bistany - drums


 * Additional personnel
 * Producer: Terry Date
 * Engineers: Terry Date, Martin Feveyear
 * Assistant engineers: Dave Fisher, Anthony Kilhoffer, Floyd Reitsman
 * Mixing: Terry Date
 * Mastering: Ted Jensen
 * Digital editing: Martin Feveyear
 * A&R: Ron Laffitte
 * Art direction: P.R. Brown, Wendy Dougan
 * Jacket design: P.R. Brown
 * Booklet design: Wendy Dougan
 * Photography: P.R. Brown

Charts
Album - Billboard (North America)