Nickelback is today’s hard rock household name. Every family’s adolescent hard rocker knows Nickelback well. They either love the band because of their songs — usually a bit too rough for their parents — or they hate them because they’re not on the newest trends. Either way, chances are all those kids dug a Nickelback song at some point and even greater odds say they own at least one album. The band is rebounding from their chart crusher, “All the Right Reasons,” which has sold more than seven million in the states.
“Black Horse,” the band’s sixth studio album, with its unfitting title, displays the band’s genre-setting hard, pop-rock sound. Nickelback has fathered bands like the more recently successful Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace, but “Black Horse” provides a solid set of songs bound by singer Chad Kroeger’s corny lyrics.
The opener, “Something in Your Mouth” is based around a sweat-slinging hard rock riff, huge drums and cool effects, but is tainted by Kroeger’s lyrics, which talk to a woman, who is better when she’s suckin’ on his thumb. To the song and album’s credit, the band’s musical direction impressively sticks to the group’s Canadian roots and still manages to pick through other styles previously unexplored.
“Dark Horse” was recorded in a converted Vancouver barn under the direction of big name producer, Robert Lunge, who helped catapult the career of Def Leppard and re-energize AC/DC in the ‘80s. Lunge’s influence can be heard most on songs like “Just to Get High,” where Kroeger sings stories of a drug-addict, who ended up dying. So surprising, right? The track is a slow tempo ‘80s stadium anthem with Phil Collins drums, big reverb-heavy guitars and quick bass lines.
The production and engineering on “S.E.X.” is impeccable, with teeth-gritting riffs that dig into the side of an earth-quaking bass tone, which breaks only to a breath-stealing drum beat and rambling vocal line. Kroeger manages to tear the song apart with his lyrics that turn the word sex into an acronym.
The album continues to hopscotch across songs that explore heavy, blues rock riffs stamped by Def Leppard-esque choruses, sickening metal guitars that keep a simple drumbeat from ripping apart the speakers. There are always the traditional Nickelback ballads. But even those tracks, aside from Kroeger’s vocal performances, experiment with danceable jams drenched in a U2 vibes in “Gotta Be Somebody” and acoustic crowd-swaying music that shakes things up with a Latin-style bongo part in “This Afternoon”.
With “Dark Horse,” Nickelback sticks in a familiar arena of pop sound, while creatively introducing itself to several other genres, but Kroeger’s lyrics, never too original, sink to an all-time low. Maybe he spent too much time on the music and abandoned a crucial element in pop-rock: lyrics. Then again, the band has been sitting on Billboard’s Top 30 list for more than 2 years. Good luck trying to call out the Canadians on something that has worked so well.
By HUNTER EMBRY
Staff Writer
ahembry@ius.edu