Nickelback - The Long Road

*=Staff's pick	Flat On The Floor* Do This Anymore* Someday Believe It Or Not Feelin' Way Too Damn Good Because Of You* Figured You Out Should've Listened Throw Yourself Away Another Hole In The Head* See You At The Show Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) (bonus track)* Learn The Hard Way (bonus track)* Yanking Out My Heart (bonus track)*

Genre	Hard Rock	Chad Kroeger	Vocals
Tracks	14	Chad Kroeger	Guitar
Runningtime	52 Min.	Ryan Peake	Guitar
Label	Roadrunner	Mike Kroeger	Bass
Release	24 Sept. 2003	Ryan Vikedal	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Creed, Staind

I guess you all must think that I must have been hitting my head against something hard when you see that I've written a review concerning Nickelback. It might be commercial American hard rock suited for radio and television but this album has enough of song quality and somewhat of a metal attitude that makes it worthy enough to be mentioning.

With The Long Road that is their third album Nickelback continues to mould songs from the same successful recipe that they did with their previous smash-hit album Silver Side Up from 2001.
But this time I can feel something is a bit different, they have pushed the angry button a bit further in, or perhaps you might say that they have found it?

Ok, you can still find some cheesy ballads and slow songs on the album that will reach out to and be consumed by the mass of media flow following people, but in general the songs are strong and many has that harder edge to them that appeals to me. At some points it even comes close to the groovy heavy southern smelling metal you can find on the excellent album Americas Volume Dealer from Corroison Of Conformity (2000).

The standard issue in a Nickelback song is calm or midtempo verses and a powerful melodic chorus with hit potential, doesn't sound to exciting but works most of the time. On The Long Road it works out best in the tracks Do This Anymore, Figured You Out and Another Hole In The Head.
The ones that I like the most are the ones with the angry button pushed, like the opening track Flat On The Floor that I find surprisingly heavy and fast for being Nickelback , and then there is the track Because Of You that follow the standard formula but still being quite heavy.
The three bonus tracks is also to be counted as some of the better tracks on the album, including the cover of the old Elton John track Saturday Night's…, that they are doing not as well as old thrashers Flotsam And Jetsam once did but they still manages to do a pretty good version of it.

In the end the music of Nickelback isn't anything out of the ordinary and definitely not something that we haven't heard before, but they have that thing you cannot put your finger on, that great ingredient of that certain something called, "it". I'm not so sure this is an album or band for that matter that will stand against the test of time, ten years from now this album will probably just be another piece of plastic from a time long forgotten, but for the moment it works and I must say that I like it, metal or not it still is quality.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas