Nickelback - Silver Side Up
(Roadrunner, 2001)

From the depths of our brother country Canada comes a real industrial-strength hard rock band, side-swiping the pop macrocosm of America in half with Silver Side Up, forged through legitimate anger and fury. It's easy to group these musicians in the Staind and Puddle Of Mudd category, judging solely from their two radio-friendly softer rockers, such as the stop-gap punch of How You Remind Me and the rock balladry of Too Bad. A sad case of negligence, considering this actually was probably one of the heavier releases of 2001. They sound more like an updated Living Colour, combining aspects of Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and even the influential King's X. However, the aformentioned songs are reasonably good, rocking with a modicum of pop sensibility that doesn't drive the listener into wrecking his or her Mercedes. Elsewhere, the firecrackers are plentiful, like on powerful opening pounder Never Again, a metal feast that will grace the classic rock compilations of the future. The atonal and beautiful sledgehammer of a song, Woke Up This Morning, harbors a fine blend of Metallica crunch and modern melodicism. Just For excellently utilizes downtuning the correct way, most likely my favorite here, intermixing light interludes with crunching guitar lines. Hollywood, Where Do I Hide, and Hangnail are similar sounding garage rockers that have a non-complex, reverberating production value; a breath of fresh air in the over-produced quagmire of the mainstream market. An excellent ballad also lies at the end of the album: the slide-guitar stylings of Good Times Gone.

Basically, the majority of music here rocks. A few tracks are scantly dull, but they are easily overshadowed by the rest of this solid record. Beyond question, lead vocalist Chad Kroeger's voice signals the return of the true rock vocalist, evocative of wailers like Bon Scott (AC/DC) or Ronnie James Dio, however toned down and made strongly original, never contrived. The drum sound protrudes a bit however, maybe a little too cymbal-dominated, and the production seems uneven, focusing more on the singles than the rest of the great tracks. Otherwise, the album couldn't really have been much improved, already driving donuts around any other mainstream hard rock act of similar heaviness today. It's a serious insult that Nickelback seem destined to be a one-hit wonder. Not their fault, and if it does happen, I'll still be a fan, because I'd follow this band back to the indie circuit.

Rating: 4/5