NIKKI LOUDER - Trout - LP / CD

Nikki Louder are chaotic noise rock trio from Slovenia and "Trout" is already their fourth full-length album. It takes less than a full first listen to notice that it's very different from the previous album, although "Golden Men" already anticipated this change in a certain manner. On the surface, Nikki Louder's usual messy and chaotic guitar/percussion interplay seems to be stripped away from "Trout", leaving the listener with a light sense of expectation and uneasiness for the first half of the album. It takes a bit of time to gain momentum and suck you into the band's newfound way of achieving the ideas they've been exploring before. Sometime mid-record, things get more straightforward and familiar – noisy, rhythmic wall-of-sound textures dominate the soundscape only to slowly fade away once again as the last track clocks in. Muffled, troubled, shouting vocals again bring lyrical themes characteristic of Nikki Louder – a layer of bizarreness, a layer of social criticism, and another one about personal distresses left there just for good measure. Overall, it's easy to notice that constantly progressing, reenvisioning and reinventing themselves while remaining true to the foundations they've built their sound around, these guys once again nailed everything right in its place.