Oh come all ye faithful and rejoice, for the backs of Nickel have released a new album for ye to worship. All praise the Chad! Album of the year 2014 AND 2015, without doubt surely? But seriously, what's it like? Is it really that bad? Can I find anything decent on it? Let's see.
No fixed address --- Nickelback --- 2014 (Republic)
We open with a low mutter and voices rising (people who have been captured by Nickelback and forced to listen to the album?) then the sound of a train rattling towards us (oh how original) followed by a vocal from Chad that is kind of echoey but nothing new --- Saxon were doing this thirty years ago. The song's okay, nothing terribly great and the next one up just sounds like a mix of “Rock star” (I'm not that familiar with these guys, despite that I slag them off) and a sub-Daughtry kind of song, with The Chad attempting a kind of rap vocal, and failing miserably. He does sound hard though. Hard to believe he thinks he's a singer. Anyway, that's “Edge of a revolution”, with a half-decent guitar solo to be fair, then oh Lord almighty! A rousing metal chant/chorus ---
“Hi! Hi! Hi! What do we want? We want change!” Yeah, like change from what I paid for this album --- oh wait, I didn't pay anything. Well I'll still take my money back. Should be paying
me to listen to this!
Not a great start guys, and we stumble on with “What are you waiting for?” Oh yeah, hit the STOP button. Well I nearly did. It's a heavily-autotuned boyband ballad, so much so that had I been listening to samples before spinning this I might have thought they had mixed up the tracks and given me something by The Script or One Direction, but no such luck. It's the boys, and they're making inroads into the lucrative teen heartthrob market. Well, they'll never make it as a rock band, so why not? God this is AWFUL! Even for Knickersback. Really. It's just painful. Oh mercy. “She keeps me up” then plunders the opening bassline from Queen's “Another one bites the dust” and goes on to devolve into a sort of semi-funk/pop/god-knows-what-the-fu
ck-this-is. Remember The Script? Yeah, even they would blush at singing this, never mind actually writing it. Jesus.
I would say that was the worst track on the album, but I confidently expect there will be more contenders for that title before we're through here. “Make me believe again” rips off Bon Jovi, very badly, but stops short of stepping over into real rock territory. Kind of rehashes “How you remind me” to be honest. When Chad sings
”You can take the time/ And wash it all away” how I wish he was right, but it's in there now and there's no getting away from it. Not sure what the deal is on the backing vocals, but someone definitely sounds like a girl. I don't see any female backing vocalists, so, who knows? Or, indeed, cares? “Satellite” sounds like the obligatory acoustic ballad, and it's of course countrified up (or should that read cu
ntrified?), a total cliche, not that I was expecting anything original but you know, you hope. Why, I don't know. Again, Chad unintentionally hits the nail on the head when he croaks
”Now I know what bad means.” You and me both, Your Chadness!
Ah, this isn't going to get any better is it? And you would think there's plenty of scope for it to, with the dross on display so far, but we're halfway through (God! Another five tracks to go! Need more beer!) Bit of a dirty guitar kicking off “Get 'em up” (get what up, Chad? My feet? You doing the hoovering?) Oh saints preserve us! It's a song about desperadoes planning a heist. In case you weren't sure, Chad sneers
”This is a robbery! Get down on the floor!” If only he'd rob every copy of this album and destroy them, the world would be a better place. Sigh. Oh look! Chad's mimicking singing through a bullhorn! How innovative! Now he's being Jon Bon Jovi again. Yeah okay, the guitar riff is not bad, and Ryan Peake attempts a solo but it kind of dies on its feet.
Nice little piano line opening “The hammer's coming down” and to be fair a decent orchestral keyboard which sounds quite dramatic and epic. Sounds like this is already being prepared as the soundtrack to a disaster movie --- hah! Disaster album for disaster movie! ----
to be honest it's not awful and if I heard it in the background as Bruce Willis or Vin Diesel (hey gimme a break! I don't get to many movies, ok?) faced nature at her worst, rippling muscles refusing to quit, a cigar hanging from his mouth and a steely gleam in his eyes --- “It's you or me, Mother F
ucking Nature! And it ain't gonna be me!” --- I'd probably say it sounded ok but I would not go searching it out on Music Banter. “Heard this AWESOME song on “2016: No, the Mayans really mean it this time!” last week: HAVE to know what it is! Please help!” Um, no. Not gonna happen.
The next track is called “Miss you”, but you might just be surprised what a good shot I am, Chad! It's another foray into the world of bland pop, and it sounds just as you would expect it to. The little girls will no doubt wet their knickers and scream how great it is, but my knickers are bone dry. There's actually nothing good I can say about this. It's so formulaic and generic it could be any pop band playing it. If you heard it on the radio you would not even realise, or care, that it was Chad and the boys. The only good thing about it is that it moves us two songs closer to the end, but it's about four minutes two seconds too long with a running time of four minutes two seconds. Oh, it has some really annoying whistling on it too. Yeah. Whistling. I know.
Some hip-hop supposed star called Flo Rida (you know him, do you? Good for you. Means nothing to me) helps out on “Got me runnin' around”, where they try, and fail, to rock it up again --- we're not a pop band! No really! Look at this! We're so tough and hard! Hell, we're METAL! --- yeah, the only metal you're likely to be compared to is Metal Mickey (very old TV joke, you probably won't get it kids, but take it from me, it's one of the cruellest and wittiest put-downs ever. If I had said this in the eighties there'd be people rolling in the aisles. Really, there would. Okay, have it your own way). Now of course we get a rap, and I'm sure it's good but it only makes me hate these guys more.
Thankfully we're onto the final track, “Sister sin” (ooh! How hard, Your Chadship!) and I have to admit I don't know what the hell this is supposed to be. It's like part folk, part blues, part country, part god-knows-what! Whatever it is, or it's meant to be, it doesn't work, and it closes the album as I expected it would, as it began, badly. What a relief though to be finished.
TRACKLISTING
1. Million miles an hour
2. Edge of a revolution
3. What are you waiting for?
4. She keeps me up
5. Make me believe again
6. Satellite
7. Get 'em up
8. The hammer's coming down
9. Miss you
10. Got me runnin' round
11. Sister sin
Yeah, this is rubbish. Even going in with an open mind like mine
there's little if anything to take back from this. I'm not happy to be trashing a band, but considering the adoration these guys get, like they're the saviours of rock or something, it really is merited. If this album proves anything, it's that Nickelback are getting even staler and less able to write songs, and are on the verge of abandoning their loyal fanbase in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Sure, they'll make new ones --- you can't move in this world without bumping into a sucker --- but is it worth it to lose the people who put them where they are today? What about loyalty? What about artistic integrity? What about pure, simple pride in their music?
Sorry, sorry! Forgot who I was talking about there for a moment! Jesus! How have these guys shifted 23 million albums over their career? Guess it's true what they say: you'll never go broke appealing to the lowest common denominator. And in the world of rock, Nickelback are about as low as you can go. Look, to be fair, there are about maybe three half-decent songs on the album, and that's more than I expected, but even then that's being a little overgenerous in the spirit of the season.
The album is called “No fixed address”, but you know, they do have an address: it's Banalville, just outside of Rip-Off Town and on the way into Cash-in City. Take my advice: don't bother listening to this. Once you've heard it, you can't un-hear it... brrrr! Like a bad Mexican meal, those bouncy rhythms and empty lyrics are going to be repeating on me for some days to come!
Where's that Death Metal Christmas album again?