Not very often you come across a band that has women in it, especially bands that have more than one woman in it. So in that way Octavia Sperati is very special considering that only one of the six bandmembers is male. This Bergen (Norway) based band that started in 2000 and released their full-length debut in 2005 has just released their sophomore album called Grace Submerged. With the reach of a top 10 place in 2005 for their debut album in the Terrorizer Magazine it was obvious Octavia Sperati was a band that has great potential. The question is of course can they live up to the expectations?

 

After the intro in ‘Guilty I Am’ it’s pretty obvious Octavia Sperati did everything to make this an album to remember. The great production of Herbrand Larsen and Arve Isdal (Enslaved, Audrey Horne, I) is perfect and gives the album the atmosphere it deserves; dark and a little depressed. This first song does remind me a lot of The Gathering but that is a comparison that already was made during their debut Winter Enclosure.

 

Luckily during the second song they show that there is much more of Octavia Sperati. With the more rock orientated ‘Moonlit’, with a great end that looks a bit like Evanescence, they show a different variety of style. Which is also something that will come back in this album, for example ‘The Final Rest’ even has a bit of black metal in it. But there's a lot more, in the piano ballad ‘Don’t Believe A Word ' , vocalist Silje shows that even ballads are no problem. Later on the album she does this trick again in the song ‘Dead End Poem’.

 

Octavia Sperati created a great album that lies somewhere between doom metal, gothic metal and rock. With great songs they manage to surprise you every time and hold your attention during the entire album. Octavia Sperati has shown us they aren’t just a one day fly but a band with great potential. Truly a great album of a band that could become very big. This is a must have for every The Gathering fan and everybody else just give this album a try, I bet you’d like it.