Octavia Sperati
Winter Enclosure

In an era where gothic metal has become a useless sonic and imaginary cliché, it seems absurd to think that five women can take up instruments and, with their own hands, create an album of medium-high quality, promoting first and foremost their own music rather than their image. Yet, with a little goodwill, the right amount of inspiration, and a distinctly female determination, even this becomes possible.

Octavia Sperati: behind this Latin monicker (a marriage of references to names of female figures with rather strong temperaments, like the sister of the Roman Emperor Augustus and an Italian actress said to haunt the theater where she used to perform) lies a completely female reality (excluding a session musician who recorded the drum parts) hailing from Bergen (Norway).

Don't, however, expect moments of exacerbated vocal lyricism, stifling keyboard inserts, or soporific atmospheres of broken hearts yearning for death, in other words, the recurring style traits of new millennium gothic metal. "Winter enclosure" is a work that aims to narrate (in a doom key) the splendor of the winter months in the cold Nordic lands. Among the girls' influences, we could cite the 3rd And The Mortal from the Kari Rueslatten era and some sound peculiarities of mid-1990s English doom metal (Anathema first and foremost), but I like to think of Octavia Sperati as a Nordic and completely male-touch-free version of The Gathering's "Mandylion" (certainly less intricate, but loaded with a unique and particular emotionality, which will certainly irritate the large contingent of male chauvinists in the metal audience). The vibe emitted by the eleven songs is a very veiled and slightly imperceptible melancholy, typical of many Norwegian bands that, in the gothic field (impossible not to mention the latest Tristania, one of the most innovative yet most misunderstood bands of the scene), are light years away from the sometimes purely standardized emotion predominant in Finland and manage to color a cerebral, unconscious, and detached emotional spectrum, succeeding in any case to reach the listener, wounding, disorienting, and stunning them. Exemplary from this point of view are tracks like the opener "Lifelines of depths" or "Wasted on the living", endowed with that essential something to elevate the band to greater visibility.

The main structure of the songs is not entrusted to keyboards, but to guitars, always rocky yet calm, when necessary. Instead, from the ivory keys come delicate, romantic yet icy Nordic atmospheres. We can talk about doom metal regarding certain moments, especially "Below zero", a perfectly executed episode in the contrast between the extreme base of the guitars and the melancholy dwelling in the vocal lines and piano sounds.

The best-executed tracks are those that lean towards more melodious solutions (bordering on the pop-rock of artists like Tori Amos), that explode in their beauty midway through the tracklist. Stunning is the duo "Hymn"-"Hunting eye", the first graced with a superb vocal performance, the second incredibly sweet with that beautiful piano accompaniment. There are also atmospheric passages (evoking cold and desolate snow-covered forests) supported by delicate guitar arpeggios like in the first part of "Without air", destined to flow into a haunting and shamanic second act, able to capture the listener's soul and not let go for even a second, thanks also to a voice that can scratch and stun.

Despite "Winter enclosure" not enjoying great media exposure, we are facing a stunning and promising debut, only flawed by an excessively short duration.

Though it is depressing to do so, I must nevertheless acknowledge that this group, because of the musical choices made, will always be the object of senseless prejudices lacking a minimum basis of truth (such as: women do not know how to play, and if they attempt, they produce inferior products that play all their strength on the proposed image). Perhaps Octavia Sperati will meet the same fate as Mozart's sister, who possessed a talent equal to her brother's but was regurgitated by the male mindset and, for this reason, was overshadowed. It is sad to know the unfortunate woman quickly fell into oblivion, while her brother has gone down in history as one of the greatest composers of all time.