Reviews in Brief: Nickelback's Dark Horse

Taking a break from manga for this week to take a listen at Nickelback's new release, Dark Horse. You all know by know that I love Nickelback; as one reviewer at Epinions put it, their music speaks to me. What amazes me is that so many people who are supposedly knowledgeable about music don't get it. Maybe that's a subject for another post, one of these days, once I figure out what's behind it -- I suspect a combination of snobbery and narrow focus. After all, it's easy to be a snob if you can't see anything but the end of your own nose.

OK -- high energy, from the very beginning, and a lot more polish than we've seen in their music to date. Some, I think, are going to take this as evidence that they're "selling out" -- as though a multi-platinum band had to. Starting with "Something in Your Mouth," we've got momentum. It's something that holds up through the entire disc, even through those songs that aren't quite so flat out (and I have to say that even the "slow" songs have got that momentum driving them).

And the band continues to hit all the points that have formed their foundation since they became a recognizable entity -- which is to say, ever since they left the posturing that was grunge and post-grunge and assumed an identity of their own. "Gotta Be Somebody," the first single off this release, is just the tip of the iceberg. It's a lot smoother than much of their material has been until now, but front-man Chad Kroeger still has that urgency in his vocals, the band can still build that wall of sound behind him, and they do a few things that are new for them. The very opening bars of that one make you stop for a minute -- Nickelback? Huh? And then Kroeger starts, with that unbelievable combination of world-weariness and innocence in his voice that snaps everything back into focus. Yes!

There's a certain artlessness in the way Kroeger constructs his songs that is so subtle that I just now noticed it, listening to "I'd Come For You," one of the "ballads" on this album. The form sounds so amateurish, when you notice it, and then you start to register on the tension between that quality of the song's construction and the sophistication of their rendering. Maybe it's just that they're a lot more savvy than anyone, even I, had given them credit for.

It's a winner, but then did you really expect me to say anything else? It's smoother, more polished -- some will call it more "commercial," whatever that means -- altogether more finished than previous efforts (and considering the quality of those efforts, I have to think this is a deliberate decision). It still goes to some of those hard places -- "Just To Get High" is as much a heartbreaker as "Side of a Bullet" or "Where Do I Hide?" and very much in the same vein -- and doesn't really make them more palatable: the anger in Kroeger's delivery, coupled with in this case almost tangible grief, makes sure of that.

It's from Roadrunner Records, came out last Tuesday (I got my copy Thursday morning), and forms the final section of a major survey of Nickelback that will be posted on November 30 at Green Man Review.

(Update: Yeah, I know I'm updating this before it's even published, but I read a couple of the less favorable reviews of this album, from Village Voice and All Music. They are so funny -- they read like parodies of rock reviews. The delicious irony is the critic from Village Voice citing "the Los Angeles Times–approved genre "flyover rock," an earnest and hedonistic style that elitist coastal types rarely even acknowledge." Maybe I missed something here, being a Chicagoan.

Maybe it's just that I concentrate too much on what the music does, rather than what I think it should do.