Hollywood angst-metal freaks Otep had been together less than a year when they snagged both a spot on OzzFest 2001 and a deal with Capitol Records last spring. This summer, they’ll be the only female-fronted band on OzzFest for the second year in a row — a role frontwoman Otep Shamaya has grown into quite nicely. "With me being a woman and the band being as heavy and aggressive as we are, I think we threatened and intimidated a lot of people, so that made it difficult for them to embrace us," she says of Otep’s first experience on the notoriously competitive tour. "But now I think people understand who we are. We come to bring a violent, liberating ritual to the people, and I think they respect that."

Otep’s first album, Sevas Tra (Capitol), brings to mind the brutality and experimentalism of Slipknot mixed with the raw emotional catharsis of ’90s rock gods Nine Inch Nails, Hole, and Marilyn Manson. The first single, "Blood Pigs," is as ferocious and ugly as commercial rock gets; the seething "Sacrilege" ends with Shamaya exorcising her religious demons over a terrifying double-bass blitz. As the sophisticated rage of her music suggests, the singer had already been writing poetry for years before she decided to start a band.

"I never had a music lesson in my life, but I knew I wanted to do something aggressive. I knew that death metal was the most aggressive music there is, so I wanted that as the foundation, but I wanted to work with musicians who had other influences as well. When it comes to musicians, there’s usually a sacrifice: they’re either technical or creative, and there’s usually no middle ground. But the guys in my band [guitarist Rob, bassist eViLj, and drummer Moke] are both. They’re all writers, but at the same time, they’re masters of their instruments. It’s like having an all-star at every position."

On bouncy tracks like "T.R.I.C." and "Battle Ready," Otep pull off a ballistic fusion of hip-hop and death metal that gives Slipknot a run for their money. It helps that the band’s producer, Terry Date, helped define rap metal through his work with Limp Bizkit, and it turns out Shamaya has pretty good taste in hip-hop herself. "When I first heard Rakim, I was completely fascinated by him. He was a very intelligent guy, but at the same time he was a normal working-class guy who was trying to rise above the negative elements that were trying to keep him down through art. That really attracted me."

Sevas Tra is "art saves" spelled backward, and that’s a theme that carries over to the CD-jacket design, which Shamaya collaborated on with noted heavy-metal visual artist P.R. Brown. The singer is also a seasoned illustrator, and the grotesque image of the band on the album cover attests to the all-encompassing approach she takes to her music. "I wanted a triptych, something like Hieronymus Bosch. It’s exactly what the record stands for, about escaping those negative elements. It’s being reborn as your own creature from the things that are trying to destroy you."

Otep perform at OzzFest 2002 this Tuesday and Wednesday, July 16 and 17, at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield. Call (617) 931-2000.