NICKLEBACK: Dark Horse

Produced by Mutt Lange, Nickelback and Joey Moi

Released: 15 November

Here's something I thought I'd never be doing: reviewing a Nickelback album! Obviously someone at the radio station I work at has once again confused what I play on my show with what these Canadian sleazeballs play because a brand new copy of Dark Horse somehow found its way into my pigeonhole there (Update Jan. 19/09: They've since given me another copy that is also going to end up on eBay). It's been a long while since I've met anyone who's actually enough of a fan of this band to even be interested in an entire album of their songs, but somebody must be because here they are with album number six, debuting at #3 on the Australian charts.

Nickleback albums are all pretty much cut to the same template, a mixture of pantie-wetting power ballads and bland, chugging radio-friendly hard rock. Dark Horse isn't anything all that different, although it does benefit from the guiding hand of Mutt Lange, who's steered a course that's midway between Back in Black and Waking Up the Neighbours. The rocking songs are fuller and heavier and the softer ones have a splash of colour, probably providing Nickelback with the sound to which they've always aspired.

Dark Horse's blend of rock and sop as an opening pair of arse-kicking rockers about sex and booze give way to a string of teary-eyed ballads are one thing to hate Nickelback for, but their crimes go further than just this. As expected, Lange contributes to the songwriting as well, and while this hasn't resulted in much variation to the standard formula, it may have in fact increased the level of Chad Kroeger's veiled misogyny and rampant sexism. These are aspects he tries to disguise in his housewife-friendly crooners like "I'd Come For You" and "Gotta be Somebody", but the disguise isn't all that clever because Nickelback (or, more correctly, Kroeger) simply blow their own cover with a string of tunes portraying women as little more than sluts, parading around in g-strings and getting drilled deliriously with their heels still on.

Leaving nothing to the imagination, "Something in Your Mouth" displays a sexism that owes more to Ice T than Nikki Sixx or Bon Scott ("It's so much cooler when you never pull it out/You're so much cuter/With something in your mouth"); similarly "Next Go Round" and "S.E.X." share the same bald-faced classlessness, beefy guitars and driving riffs but a lyrical crassness that other bands at this level would find downright embarrassing.

With Dark Horse, Nickelback is still cluelessy scrabbling around for the same formula that made Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Van Halen popular with both girls and guys, but even with the help of one of the world's best producers they still can't find it. I'm not sure what the "dark horse" of the title is all about either, because there's nothing unexpected about this album whatsoever.

1. Something in Your Mouth
2. Burn it to the Ground
3. Gotta Be Somebody
4. I'd Come for You
5. Next Go Round
6. Just to Get High
7. Never Gonna be Alone
8. Shakin' Hands
9. S.E.X.
10. If Today Was Your Last Day
11. This Afternoon

Rating: 40%