1. Something In Your Mouth
2. Burn It To The Ground
3. Gotta Be Somebody
4. I'd Come For You
5. Next Go Round
6. Just To Get High
7. Never Gonna Be Alone
8. Shakin' Hands
9. S.E.X
10. If Today Was Your Last Day
11. This Afternoon

Bass – Mike Kroeger
Drums, Vocals – Daniel Adair
Guitar, Vocals – Ryan Peake
Vocals, Guitar – Chad Kroeger

"I think they're great," Chris Martin said of Nickelback during a radio interview last month. Different strokes and all that, but the Coldplay singer could hardly have picked a less lovable group to champion. The hilarious, parodic single Rockstar excepted, Nickelback's music reaffirms every sex-and-stupidity cliche hard rock can offer. (Chad Kroeger, the band's main dude, has even said that this album, the followup to their 10m-selling All the Right Reasons, was nearly titled Sex and Drinking.)

One or another of those subjects finds its way into most songs here; if Kroeger isn't lusting after "the hottie with the million-dollar body", he's ingesting "a fistful of whiskey", and so on. And on. He sings like it hurts; perhaps pitting his effortful wheeze against his band's pub-rock riffage is harder than it sounds. Alternatively, despite having made it his life's work to celebrate idiocy, maybe he is actually embarrassed. ---Caroline Sullivan, theguardian.com

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01. This Means War
02. Bottoms Up
03. When We Stand Together			play
04. Midnight Queen			play
05. Gotta Get Me Some
06. Lullaby
07. Kiss It Goodbye
08. Trying Not To Love You
09. Holding On To Heaven
10. Everything I Wanna Do
11. Don't Ever Let It End

Musicians:
    Chad Kroeger – vocals, guitar
    Ryan Peake – guitar, backing vocals
    Mike Kroeger – bass, backing vocals
    Daniel Adair – drums, backing vocals

Nickelback seems to hold a special place in critics’ hearts. Seldom has a band drawn such slings and arrows. It’s as if every time one of their fans buys a Nickelback album— and they’ve bought more than 50 million of them— a critic’s puppy gets kicked and evil edges one step closer to winning.

Please. That’s such wasted energy.There’s always been a space for acts that folks in the flyover states love and that snobs on the coasts hate (I can say that since I’m originally from North Carolina). Or to put it in political language, even though they are from Canada, Nickelback is about as red state a band as ever existed.

On “Here and Now,” out today, Chad Kroeger and the boys do nothing to endear themselves to any of their haters, including those 50,000+ people who signed a petition protesting the band’s halftime performance during Thanksgiving’s Detroit Lions/Green Bay Packers game.

Instead, the meat-and-pototoes rockers have stuck with a tried-and-true formula of well-crafted songs that celebrate their common-man status (despite their presumably millionaire savings accounts) and love for pliant strippers, a certain leafy plant, and all forms of alcohol.

Nickelback is back to producing themselves, but the lessons learned from working with uber-producer Mutt Lange on 2008’s “Dark Horse” remain: Even if there's little here that possesses the potential stickiness of 2005's mega-smash "Photograph," the songs on “Here and Now” are tightly-coiled bullet blasts with little bloat for the most part starting with opening slab “This Means War.” Ryan Peake’s gunfire guitar work and Kroeger’s screaming chorus give notice that they aren’t going down without a fight. It’s a rallying cry that permeates much of the rest of the album.

The first two singles, released simultaneously — the party-til-you-puke-or-pass-out anthem “Bottoms Up” and the strumming, acoustic “When We Stand Together,” which addresses world hunger among other societal ills — demonstrate the inherent paradox in Nickelback.

What undoubtedly confuses folks is that Nickelback can go from these Neanderthal anthems about women who will “lick my pistol clean” on “Midnight Queen” and that reduce men to their absolute basest urges and women to cartoon playthings to songs that uplift and inspire, such as “Lullaby” which is a soothing love letter to someone who is contemplating suicide. Guess what? You’re thinking too hard about it. Trust me, the members of Nickelback hasn’t spent a minute contemplating why they can have hits with such seemingly disparate songs as “Rockstar” and “If Everyone Cared.” They’re too busy spending their money on the next lap dance or buying a new Maserati.

What’s a little harder to reconcile is their ability to totally objectify women and compare them to cars and turn around and write love songs that resonate with equal validity. The best of the trio of love tunes on “Here and Now” is “Don’t Ever Let It End,” a song, that quite frankly, is so sweet that the Kroeger who’s singing on “This Means War” would punch out the wimpy Kroeger who’s singing this love ode and push him into a locker. Despite that, it’s a punchy pop song that has a great melody and lovely harmonies.

If you’re looking for innovation, Nickelback’s music has always been the wrong place and when the band tries to experiment, the results are spotty at best, such as on “Everything I Wanna Do,” a mess of a song that mashes up metal, rock, weird pastiches of electronica, and distorted vocals. I bet it was a blast to create in the studio, but it should have stayed off the record. Same with the fuzzy stomp of “Kiss It Goodbye,” which attempts to reinforce Nickelback’s outsider status. --- Melinda Newman, hitfix.com

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1. Follow You Home 
2. Fight For All The Wrong Reasons 
3. Photograph 
4. Animals 
5. Savin’ Me 
6. Far Away 
7. Next Contestant 
8. Side Of A Bullet 
9. If Everyone Cared 
10. Someone That You’re With 
11. Rockstar

Bass – Mike Kroeger
Drums, Vocals – Daniel Adair
Guitar, Vocals – Chad Kroeger, Ryan Peake 

With their fourth album, All the Right Reasons, Nickelback ditch any pretense of being a grunge band and finally acknowledge they're a straight-up heavy rock band. Not that they've left the angst of grunge behind: they're a modern rock band living in a post-grunge world, so there are lots of tortured emotions threaded throughout the 11 songs here. But where their previous albums roiled with anger -- their breakthrough "How You Remind Me" was not affectionate, it was snide and cynical -- there's a surprisingly large sentimental streak running throughout All the Right Reasons, and it's not just limited to heart-on-sleeve power ballads like "Far Away" and "Savin' Me," the latter being the latest entry in their soundalike sweepstakes. No, lead singer/songwriter Chad Kroeger is in a particularly pensive mood here, looking back fondly at his crazy times in high school on "Photograph" ("Look at this photograph/Every time I do it makes me laugh/How did our eyes get so red?/And what the hell is on Joey's head?"), lamenting the murder of Dimebag Darrell on "Side of a Bullet" (where a Dimebag solo is overdubbed), and, most touching of all, imagining "the day when nobody died" on "If Everyone Cared" (which would be brought about "If everyone cared and nobody cried/If everyone loved and nobody lied"). Appropriately enough for an album that finds Kroeger's emotional palette opening up, Nickelback try a few new things here, adding more pianos, keyboards, and acoustic guitars to not just their ballads, but a few of their big, anthemic rockers; they even sound a little bit light and limber on "Someone That You're With," the fastest tune here and a bit of relief after all the heavy guitars. All this makes for a more varied Nickelback album, but it doesn't really change their essence. Sure, they stretch a little bit, but they still favor clumsy, plodding riffs, still incessantly rewrite the same chords and melody, still harmonize exactly the same way on every song, Kroeger still sounds as if he's singing with a hernia, he still writes shockingly stupid lines that make you long for the days of such subtle double-entendres as "she's using her head again" (such as "She'd be pissed if she could see the parts of you that I've been kissing," "It's just a little hard to leave/When you're going down on me" -- and, mind you, this album does not carry a Parental Advisory sticker, even though "a**holes" is prominently used in two songs), and despite the attempted sarcasm of "Rockstar," he still shows no discernible sense of humor. Which means, despite all their newly developed relative nuances, Nickelback remain unchanged: they're still unspeakably awful. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic Review

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1 	Little Friend 	3:49
2 	Pusher 	4:01
3 	Detangler 	3:41
4 	Curb	4:52
5 	Where? 	4:27
6 	Falls Back On 	2:58
7 	Sea Groove 	3:58
8 	Fly 	2:53
9 	Just Four 	3:54
10 	Left 	4:03
11 	Window Shopper 	3:43
12 	I Don't Have 	4:06

Bass – Mike Kroeger
Drums – Brandon Kroeger
Rhythm Guitar, Backing Vocals – Ryan Peake
Vocals, Lead Guitar – Chad Kroeger
+
Cello – Ariel Watson
Drums – Boyd Grealy

"Curb" is the Canadian rock band's debut LP, and it's a pretty solid first effort. That doesn't mean the album is perfect, though.

One of the positive things about this album is that Nickelback have a very grunge-inspired sound, which may please fans of the genre. Another positive is the lyrical content, especially on songs such as "Where"" "Fly" "Left" and the title track. Mr. Kroeger seemed a lot more focused and sincere with his lyrics on the bands earlier albums, unlike their newer works with songs such as "Something In Your Mouth" (shudders). The next pro with the album is instrumentation. It may come off as choppy to some, but on tracks like "Falls Back On" and "Detangler" it really stands out. Speaking of instrumentation, the bands drummer at the time, Brandon Kroeger, was very energetic, much like the bands current drummer Daniel Adair, who is also an excellent drummer. The albums highlight songs include "Where"" A fast, raw tune about love and trust, "Falls Back On" a catchy, grungey, more energetic track, "Fly" a nice song about Kroeger as a child wanting to know where bad men go when the die, and "Left" about a man who drowns, his final words being "I'm the only one left" hence the title.

Now onto the negatives. One of them is the vocal work. Chad Kroeger's growling vocals may come off as decent to some, but those unfamiliar will just find them unpleasant, especially on tracks like "Just Four" where Kroeger sounds as if he is singing through his teeth. So glad that song was rerecorded. Another is the way some songs are recorded. "Window Shopper" has decent instrumentals but the vocals on it are diffucult to understand due to the microphone fuzzing out Kroeger's voice. Although, that could be a good thing because it makes it sound a lot more underground. The third con is lack of variety. Much like the 1999 follow up "The State", the album suffers from too many similar sounding moments, such as "Detangler" and "Fly" and "Left" and "I Don't Have". Some of the albums weaker songs include "Sea Groove" and "Pusher".

The album as a whole has a very underground/indie production style to it, incorporating elements of Grunge, Post-grunge, and Alt-metal. The band had also yet to be signed at the time the album was released. Also, when originally released, the album cover was different than the one that is shown above, which really makes no sense. Think about it. The album is called Curb. "Curb" means the side of a road, and the new cover shows the middle of a road. I know its not a big deal, but Roadrunner Records really should've done they're research.

So, in the end, "Curb" is a strong debut album which, despite a few faults that I described above, can be a very entertaining spin for those who are fans of the grunge genre, or indie music. It has ups and downs, the ups of which are definitely worth a listen. If your wanting to find something good about Nickelback, listen to this album. But keep in mind that they can't please everyone. ---WesleyJones, sputnikmusic.com

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1. Never Again 
2. How You Remind Me 
3. Woke Up This Morning 
4. Too Bad 
5. Just For 
6. Hollywood 
7. Money Bought 
8. Where Do I Hide 
9. Hangnail 
10. Good Times Gone

Bass – Mike Kroeger
Drums – Ryan "Vik" Vikedal
Vocals, Guitar – Chad Kroeger, Ryan Peake

Industrial-strength rock & roll is back with a vengeance on the earnest Silver Side Up by Nickelback. The band wastes no time in getting into its brand of dark, high-octane rock. The album opener "Never Again," about spousal abuse, thrusts out of the starting gate with rocket-fueled intensity. Lead singer/guitarist/lyricist Chad Kroeger does not mince words in his portrayals of the darker sides of the human experience, and that is what Silver Side Up is essentially about. Nickelback's music is issue-oriented on the domestic and personal front, and it's a refreshing change of pace in 2001's sea of angry rockers. Another familial subject is tackled on the pounding "Too Bad." The song describes an emotionally and physically absent father figure as seen through the eyes of a regretful adult-child looking back. The cut that broke the band to mainstream audiences is "How You Remind Me," a thundering, mid-tempo rock track marked by thick chords and a brooding tone. Kroeger's voice is filled with weariness as he well captures the self-defeated feelings one experiences when being emotionally dissected by a lover. Such words as "'cause living with me must have damn near killed you" painfully zero in on the breakdown of the human spirit when it's badgered enough. Because, sadly, many have found themselves in this situation, the song connects with listeners. Coupled with a powerful and moody soundtrack, it's no wonder it took off on the radio. Grunge pays a visit on the set's closing number, "Good Times Gone." This well-crafted song slowly builds in intensity -- from the intro's fingered guitar notes and understated vocals, to the gradual addition of instruments, to Kroeger's explosive vocal release at the song's end, which retreats back into softly strummed guitar notes. "Good Times Gone" is reminiscent of a Pearl Jam number, and this is no surprise; Silver Side Up was co-produced by Rick Parashar, who has worked with Seattle's finest. Nickelback's style is edgy aggressive rock peppered with a taste of grunge. The band can easily sit alongside Staind and 3 Doors Down, among other like acts. However, what Nickelback has in spades and what gives the group an upper hand over its peers is intensity and raw passion. Some bands finger the crap out of their guitars and relentlessly beat away at the drums, crafting songs that boast the intensity of an electric storm. Nickelback ups the ante by offering realistic storytelling that listeners can relate to. ---Liana Jonas, AllMusic Review

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