Reviews in Brief: Nickelback’s “Here and Now”

I did a full-length review of Nickelback’s Here and Now when I first got it, over at Epinions, but I’ve been listening to it a lot recently, and, as they say in the song (someone else’s song), I can see clearly now. You can get a track-by-track first-impressions take from the Epinions review, but as for my further thoughts:

Nickelback’s albums fall into a distinct pattern – there’s the loud, obnoxious rock’n’roll opener (in this case, “This Means War”), there will be the party song (“Bottoms Up”), the social justice song (“When We Stand Together”), and probably a song to establish their heterosexual stud bona fides – in this case, “Midnight Queen” and “Everything I Wanna Do,” and usually one quasi-satirical song about the rock-star business (“Kiss It Goodbye”). What’s different on this collection is the somewhat rougher edge, the darker tone to most of these songs.

What caught me on this one, as it does on most of their albums, are the love songs – “Trying Not To Love You,” “Holding On To Heaven,” "Don't Ever Let It End," and, in a way, “Lullaby.” Nickelback comes up with these sometimes back-handed love songs that are perfectly tailored to front man Chad Kroeger’s voice – he puts all that raw yearning into these songs, and that makes them work.

This one’s a bit more polished than previous albums, not quite so much as Dark Horse, but all the better for it. There’s a couple of earworms here. It may very well be their best release so far.

This is a really stupid video for this song, but it's the "official" video, so that's what you get. You're getting it because the song has been my morning earworm for about a week now.