All the Right Reasons [LP] in Bloomington, MN

With their fourth album,
All the Right Reasons
,
Nickelback
ditches any pretense of being a
grunge
band and finally acknowledges they're a straight-up heavy
rock
band. Not that they've left the angst of
behind: they're a modern
band living in a
post-grunge
world, so there's lots of tortured emotions threaded throughout the 11 songs here. But where their previous albums roiled with anger -- their breakthrough
"How You Remind Me"
was not affectionate, it was snide and cynical -- there's a surprisingly large sentimental streak running throughout
, and it's not just limited to heart-on-sleeve power
ballads
like
"Far Away"
and
"Savin' Me,"
the latter being the latest entry in their soundalike sweepstakes. No, lead singer/songwriter
Chad Kroeger
is in a particularly pensive mood here, looking back fondly at his crazy times in high school on
"Photograph"
("Look at this photograph/Every time I do it makes me laugh/How did our eyes get so red?/And what the hell is on Joey's head?"), lamenting the murder of
Dimebag Darrell
on
"Side of a Bullet"
(where a
Dimebag
solo is overdubbed), and, most touching of all, imagining "the day when nobody died" on
"If Everyone Cared"
(which would be brought about "If everyone cared and nobody cried/If everyone loved and nobody lied"). Appropriately enough for an album that finds
Kroeger
's emotional palette opening up,
tries a few new things here, adding more pianos, keyboards, and acoustic guitars to not just
, but a few of their big, anthemic rockers; they even sound a little bit light and limber on
"Someone That You're With,"
the fastest tune here and a bit of relief after all the heavy guitars. All this makes for a more varied
album, but it doesn't really change their essence. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine