Nickelback
Dark Horse
Release Date: Nov 18, 2008
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative, Metal
Record label: Roadrunner
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Album Review: Dark Horse by Nickelback
Mediocre, Based on 6 Critics
Based on rating C+
The only sure thing in the music business in 2008? The testosterone caddies of AC/DC, Metallica, Hinder, and Nickelback — bands who make fist-pumping anthems for the masses, and collect platinum plaques like they seem to collect hangovers and cocktail waitresses. Welcome, record buyers, to the Year of the Dude. Having moved a combined 16 million copies of their last five albums, Nickelback hardly need to call their latest CD Dark Horse; the International Rawk Constituency is already salivating at the thought of a new round of thunderous sonic shenanigans.
Based on rating 2.5/5
Review Summary: The question remains, unanswered: who actually likes Nickelback?A recent LA Times feature (yeah, yeah, I’ll get my coat. . .
Based on rating 3/10
These two sounds have been the group's trademark for a while now, ever since Kroeger started plumbing the depths of his shallow soul to spit out invective toward lovers and fathers on 2001's Silver Side Up, but stardom has stripped away all lingering angst, leaving behind slow songs about love and fast songs about partying, all designed to woo women he'll later hate. Underneath the housewife-hooking power ballads -- "I'd Come for You," "If Today Was Your Last Day" -- plus "Just to Get High," an ode to a fallen junkie friend that's part of the proud tradition that stretches back to at least Body Count's "The Winner Loses," Dark Horse seethes with ugly misogyny, as Kroeger trots out a parade of dirty little ladies in pretty pink thongs, porn stars, strippers, and sluts, all of whom are desired and despised for showing too much skin. Kroeger may claim that "S is for the simple need/E is for the ecstasy" in his middle-school chant "S.
Based on rating 3/10
Apparently, Nickelback is “critic-proof.” As many articles are quick to point out, Nickelback have never received much love from critics, spawning indifference in some sectors and outright hatred in others. When this group of Canadian rockers broke into the mainstream with 2001’s “How You Remind Me”, they carried with them seemingly huge ambitions: Singer Chad Kroeger attempts to paint vivid character portraits with his boisterous rock guitars and everyman rock vocals. Nickelback, after all, is a “serious” band, and they demand to be treated as such.
Based on rating 1/5
"Ithink 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.
Opinion: Not recommended
Chad Kroeger and co. are back with another soundtrack for date rapists everywhere. Kroeger's voice sounds more like a wounded goat than ever before, and their blatantly recycled songs touch on familiar themes like strippers, sex, prostitutes, drugs, sex, drinking and sex. The best evidence is on the song S.E.X., where Kroeger advocates rethinking consent, singing "No is a dirty word...
'Dark Horse'
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