NICKELBACK – Here And Now (2011)
*
“Here And Now”, the seventh studio album from Canadians NICKELBACK is set to hit stores this week.
Loved and hated equally, their commercial hard rock / pop never have been of my preference, but that’s not the point here.
Seems the ‘cool thing’ is to hate Nickelback, specially the press. Meanwhile, the band sold a combined 21 million copies of their last six albums when no one was buying records.
The truth is that they aren’t half bad, you can’t deny they’re good at what they do: commercial poppy tunes with some distorted guitar.
So why it is reviewed here?
Because on this new album we can appreciate some really good hard rockers. Seriously. And the grungy and ‘modern rock’ sound are gone, at least for the most part.
Amongst they typical stuff that I don’t care, there’s a really well crafted hardrocker on “Bottoms Up”. Strong riff on this one, not tuned down, just on full octane. The song is constructed on a classic hard rock skeleton and the overall sound is pretty retro eighties, even seventies, complete with wah-wah.
Another interesting one is the stomping “Midnight Queen”, with its furious early nineties hard rock overtones, not grunge at all. In fact, it’s a catchy and good rocker with a cool (short) guitar solo.
“Here And Now” is a pretty standard Nickelback record. There’s some small variations from the formula here but nothing ground breaking.
You have your typical Top 40 sound oriented tracks, the ballads, etc., but only 1/3 of the album are slower songs, so haters stop whining about it.
People need to constantly be reminded that Nickelback is a rock band. With their poppy chart intentions, yes, but not bad at all. You like it or not.
That’s why it is reviewed here; many people likes Nickelback.
And if you like it, with “Here And Now” you won’t be disappointed.
01 – This Means War
02 – Bottoms Up
03 – When We Stand Together
04 – Midnight Queen
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
Chad Kroeger – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar
Ryan Peake – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals
Mike Kroeger – bass
Daniel Adair – drums, backing vocals
BUY IT !
www.amazon.com/Here-Now-Nickelback/dp/B005NF2UE6
