Silver Side Up (CD)

Nickelback is back with a vengeance on the earnest 'Silver Side Up.' The band wastes no time in getting into its brand of high-octane rock. The album opener "Never Again," about spousal abuse, thrusts out of the starting gate with rocket-fueled intensity. Lead singer/guitarist/lyricist Chad Kroeger does not mince words in his portrayals of the darker sides of the human experience, and that is what 'Silver Side Up' is essentially about. Nickelback's music is issue-oriented on the domestic and personal front, and it's a refreshing change of pace in 2001's sea of angry rockers. Another familial subject is tackled on the pounding "Too Bad." The song describes an emotionally and physically absent father figure as seen through the eyes of a regretful adult-child looking back. The cut that broke the band to mainstream audiences is "How You Remind Me," a thundering, mid-tempo rock track marked by thick chords and a brooding tone. Kroeger's voice is filled with weariness as he well captures the self-defeated feelings one experiences when being emotionally dissected by a lover. Such words as "'cause living with me must have damn near killed you" painfully zero in on the breakdown of the human spirit when it's badgered enough.