Funny how the same old criticisms always appear to be leveled at the most successful bands. With Nickelback, it’s usually the fact that their albums always sound the same - do I really want a Nickelback album that’s not at least kind of like the last one? No. Not really - and if my memory is good, which it is - it never did AC/DC, Kiss and Bon Jovi any harm. Success does indeed bring it’s own sack of crap to deal with. The more fans you get on side, the more the detractors can be heard shouting from their bedrooms.

With Dark Horse, a whole album later than expected (though certainly hinted at previously) Nickelback have truly entered “the road” territory. Fueled by tales of strippers, strip clubs, friends who died while they were out and missing those left behind, Dark Horse is an album for all seasons - you name it, they’ve got it covered. Fucking, driving, busting chops, chilling out. I don’t need or want an album that does anything other than this most of the time. I’ve come a long way from that analytical bull that critics think they should do when they arrive at the table. I just wanna rock. Steve Austin got that right…

The world needs Nickelback right now. Name one other band solid enough to carry the torch so confidently across the globe. Name another band who can take the critical knocks and not let it make one iota of difference to the music they’re making. More importantly, name one band that makes you feel like your 15 years old again. Shit, I so badly want to lose my virginity to Something In Your Mouth. For the record, that’s all we ever got to listen to in this scenario. Whoever she was, she’s in a cab by the time Burn It To The Ground starts, the beers are chilling in the fridge and there’s a wrestling PPV about to kick in on the TV. In this imaginary world, I probably also own a Mitsubishi Warrior and have a basement where I can hang out with my friends and act like a dick. In other words, Nickelback bring out the primitive redneck motherfucker in me that feels so comfortable, I have to check my pants before I leave the house. The key plot point here is this is how it makes everybody feel. It’s nothing to be ashamed of people… those who can’t handle it are simply those who find this imaginary life repulsive, but everybody likes to sit at traffic lights with Nickelback on the stereo just waiting to burn off the kid in the more expensive car next to them… don’t they?

At this point, I feel it necessary to address the selling of sofas to a nation of sofa buyers. For those of you not in the UK, Rockstar was recently used in a sofa commercial that made the nation cringe - not because of the song, but rather because of the middle aged posh people playing air guitar and miming to it. It was a dreadful moment in recent rock history… but if somebody asked me if I’d take a hundred grand plus royalties for something I wrote two years ago for a cat food commercial, I’d do it - and then I’d sit in my brand new Audi at the traffic lights laughing at people who had cats and not dogs. Or something. Still, the next person in a suit who makes a devil horn sign at me is getting a sleeper hold.

The reason Dark Horse took album of 2008 out here is that for the first time in at least a decade, I was actually excited about an album and on undressing it, it didn’t disappoint. You know exactly what Dark Horse is like before you’ve played it, but you still know nothing at all. I’ve probably said more than is good for my health about Something In Your Mouth and by the time Burn It To The Ground kicks in, I’ve got that Creatures of the Night thing going on… you know the one. The one where your EQ is set perfectly for the drums to make a definite change in the basic shape of your skeletal structure…

As is only correct for a Nickelback album, there are two basic plans of attack: Full frontal and a crowbar to the neural and emotional pathways. The full frontal is bang on the nose: Next Go Round, Shakin’ Hands, S.E.X. and those previously mentioned simply bring in the guitars, turn it up and make me want to fuck and drive stupidly fast. File under ‘good thing’. The remainder however are littered cunningly through the album making you drop into fourth - sometimes even third - every now and again. Tip of the ‘berg here is If Today Was Your Last Day. Call me a sentimental fool (cue Y&T classic) but this touches a part of me I hold incredibly close. That’s exactly how to live a life. Sure, it may be incredibly tacky or even cliched, but there are a million worse ways to sing a song about how to live a life. Just To Get High meanwhile, is a car crash Tommy and Gina story. If you’re alive, you all know somebody like this.

Ultimately, if you care, you’re there and I’m preaching to the converted. As a last word, whoever had the idea of bringing in that young upstart Mutt Lange to produce this deserves a new sofa to sit on. The production on Dark Horse is about as perfect as an album could ever get. Would I like to see Nickelback do a multi-layered Hysteria? I’m not sure - it might mute the sensibility as Nickelback succeed for the very reason every other great band do - they write hulking great rock songs that touch every basic human emotion with no thought for the consequences.

Tell you what though, strip the whole album down to three acoustics in the Lost Horizon bar in Syracuse and I’m in pig shit heaven - and that my similarly attired friends, is about all any of us has the right to ask for. I love Nickelback. So shoot me.

Sion Smith