Nautilus - Nautilus

Nautilus

Nautilus
self-released; 2015

3.5 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

I’m not sure what took Nautilus so long to get their album out but it’s finally here. Nautilus formed in 2005 and 2006 and then went  to record to their self-titled album Nautilus in 2009. I’m not exactly sure why it didn’t surface till now but you know that saying "better late than never" should apply here. The four-piece band comprised of Peter Chase, Matthew Rosen, Vivica Autumn Friedman and Dylan McDowell make instrumental prog rock. It’s guitar driven, it’s heavy and it sometime sounds like King Crimson. 

The songs on this album don’t need a whole lot of explanation. This guitar driven instrumental music doesn’t rest on its laurels. There are a copious amount of changes on each song. The music doesn’t want to hypnotize you with looping parts but instead wants to keep you at the edge of your seat waiting to see where the song goes.

And these songs do go for quite some time. The longest song being the twelve-minute opus entitled “Light From Saturn.” The band wisely starts things off slow and sparse. Guitars play clean riffs and drums seem to come and go as they please. The song can fall apart at any moment but once the bass and distortion comes into the picture the band get some footing. In another pro move the band doesn’t keep things heavy and distorted the whole time. The song reaches an apex around half way through with some impressive guitar lead and then gets its most intense about eight minutes in.

I thought all the songs were pretty solid but there were a couple which stood out to me. “Momentous Reunion” may have had the best lead guitar work on the album. In fact everyone in the band is super on point during this song. The other two highlights were “Skülfk” which gets into metal territory and the closer which is appropriately called “Magnum Opus.”

This album will appeal to a specific type of music aficionado. You will most likely already be a fan of prog rock and technical prowess. If you like exploring the nuances and complexities within a song then I think you will enjoy yourself listening to Nautilus.

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