Nautilus is the fifth official studio album from Serbian industrial group dreDDup. dreDDup who started out in 1997 in the small country town of Novi Sad, stated in 2010 that there would be no more studio albums and that band was going into album-recording-hibernation. Nautilus therefore comes as a surprise. It was recorded during the period 2011-2012 in the DURU studio. The complete production and studio mastering/mixing was done by mikka.
Originally conceived as an album concerning the end of the world, it would later develop into a story about the abandonment of mankind’s norms, and voyages into the depths of the ocean. The physical CD was released on August 20th,2013. dreDDup have opened shows for Laibach, Marilyn Manson, The Prodigy, Skrillex, Toy Dolls as well as many others.
I’ll get this off my chest quickly, so that we can advance without much ado or doubts. This album is nothing but amazing. Every track on this CD is great. The vocals, lyrics, programming, guitars, everything is top notch. The songs are intelligent and catchy. dreDDup mix together the guitars and vocals of a metal band, the programming of techno, and the look and feel of gothic industrial. Nothing could be more perfect for what they call massacre industrial!
Nautilus will be well liked by fans of industrial music, especially NIN fans. Not being one to be particularly fond of all the breakdowns of any given genre, I would say they hint at industrial but being a little more experimental. A very loose comparison could be a mix of, Marilyn Manson, Static-X, NiN, Alice In Chains and Gravity Kills. But it’s darker, heavier and louder, and for those reasons it has an edge over the aforementioned artists.
Guitars are like musical chainsaws, drums hit harder than a crowbar to the head, vocals are harsh enough to satisfy death metal fans, and the electronic mood is just as dark as it can get.
There’s never a dull moment on this album. The opening track, “Awake” starts off with a spoken voice that seems hell-bent on destruction and back-up by irate buzz-saw-synths aimed at your throat. With slowly ripping guitar chords, “Echoes and Doors” will make your ears bleed as it builds into an incredibly angry danceable beat. One wonders why dreDDup aren’t bigger than their semi-underground status in the first place.
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There’s no time for pondering though, as the next track, “Train To Madness,” pummels the listener into a bloody pulp with an incredibly dark tone and one mean and ugly, powerful riff from hell that will leave you sprawled out on the floor twitching with convulsions. From one track to another, it’s a blistering sonic assault on all your senses that rages forth in manic tempo, rolling over everything in sight and never letting up.
Standout tracks for me include: “Fire Up The Planet”, “Non Negotiable”, “Hospital For The Broken”, “Face Off”, “Nautilus” and “Cold Eyes”.
All throughout the vocals thrash and bash like you wouldn’t believe, while the instrumentals roll-on like a tank ready for war, destroying everything in sight, and leaving a path of destruction and mayhem with its sonic wrath. Absolutely wonderful!
Electronic, industrial rock at its absolute finest, I say. Of course, Nautilus as a whole is amazing. Every second is powerful and filled with visceral wrath waiting to explode at anyone or anything at the touch of the play button. Samples are brilliantly placed all over the epic industrial arrangements and the pile-driving production makes you want to bang your head and kick your foot through the wall all at the same time.
There is never a dull moment; never an out of place instrument, sample, or vocal; and you could never get enough of this stuff. This is the real deal when it comes to industrial-metal, electronic-rock, massacre-industrial…or even anything remotely close to it, for that matter. So if that’s what you’re craving for, you need dreDDup and Nautilus!
dreDDup is: miKKa (vocals, electronics), frAntz (drums), xxXandra (bass), Armageddon (guitar), GPS (back vocals).
OFFICIAL LINKS & WEBSITES:
