Nickelback's seventh studio album, "Here and Now," arrives on November 21, 2011, through Roadrunner Records. Produced by Chad Kroeger and Joey Moi - the same production team behind the band's 2008 album "Dark Horse" - the record represents a confident continuation of the Alberta band's established commercial rock formula while incorporating a few sonic experiments that suggest the band is not entirely comfortable standing still.
Nickelback formed in Hanna, Alberta in 1995 and spent several years working the Canadian club circuit before their 2001 album "Silver Side Up" produced the mega-hit "How You Remind Me," which spent an unprecedented period atop both rock and pop charts simultaneously. The band - Chad Kroeger on vocals and guitar, Ryan Peake on guitar, Mike Kroeger on bass, and Daniel Adair on drums - has since become one of the best-selling rock acts of the 2000s globally, with combined album sales exceeding 50 million copies.
That commercial success has made Nickelback one of the most polarizing acts in rock music. No Canadian band generates as much passion on both sides of the critical divide. Fans fill arenas; detractors argue the band represents the lowest common denominator of modern radio rock. The truth is considerably more complicated. At their best, Nickelback are exceptionally skilled at crafting hooks and delivering them with a production sheen that translates effortlessly to FM radio and arena acoustics.
Lead Singles: "Bottoms Up" and "When We Stand Together"
"Bottoms Up," the album's opening single, leans hard into party-rock territory - cowbells, slide guitar fills, a refrain built for festival crowds. It's a calculated move and an effective one. The song doesn't aim to say anything new about rock music; it aims to have you singing along by the second listen, and it achieves that goal without apology.
"When We Stand Together" represents the album's more earnest register, an anthemic track with a humanitarian edge that echoes some of Kroeger's more reflective songwriting from earlier albums. The melody is generous and the arrangement builds in the way that stadium-rock choruses are supposed to build. It's the kind of song that will close sets on this album cycle's tour dates.
A third track, "Lullaby," takes the album into unexpectedly vulnerable territory. The song deals with the subject of personal crisis and the impulse to offer comfort to someone in the depths of despair. It's a more challenging listen than the album's exterior would suggest, and it stands as one of the stronger compositions Kroeger has written in recent years.
The Album in Context
Placed within the broader context of 2011 Canadian rock, "Here and Now" functions as a reliable delivery of exactly what Nickelback's fanbase expects. It won't convert the unconvinced, and it wasn't designed to. The album knows its audience with a precision that comes from nearly two decades of working the same territory.
"Here and Now" is an album that knows exactly what it wants to be - and executes that vision with the confidence of a band that has played arenas for more than a decade. Whatever your feelings on Nickelback, there is craft here that deserves acknowledgment.
Production values are immaculate throughout. Joey Moi's fingerprints are all over the low-end punch and the way the guitars sit in the mix - thick without becoming muddy, with room for Kroeger's vocal to occupy the centre of each track cleanly. For listeners who find the Nickelback sound gratifying, this is one of the better-sounding albums of their career.
The album is available for pre-order now and releases in Canada and internationally on November 21, 2011. A tour in support of the record is expected to be announced in the coming months.
