albums and tracks

Straddling the chart like a leather-trousered colossus for the best part of a year, Nickelback's 'Rockstar' changed most people's perspective on the Canadian rockers. Where moody, full-throated grungisms had seemed the order of the day, now there was a band willing to take the mick out of itself. But do we need irony from our smooth-edged metallers? Aren't they funny enough already?

On sixth album Dark Horse, Chad Kroeger and crew have recruited outside help for the first time, enlisting Robert "Mutt" Lange as producer. It's billed as a meeting of minds, and with Lange's pedigree as alchemist of Def Leppard's leering '80s soft-rock gold, we're not about to argue.

As well as a canny ear for a drive-time tune, Nickelback share Def Leppard's love of, well, sex. They can't get enough, from the grinding 'Shakin' Hands', with its heartfelt tribute to a young lady who "ain't no Cinderella when she's gettin' undressed/Cause she rocks it like the naughty wicked witch of the west", to 'Next Go Round's "We're gonna go on until our legs give out".

Balls-out riffathons 'Something In Your Mouth' ("I love the way you tease them all by sucking on your thumb") and 'Burn It To The Ground' set the tone in more ways than one, bigging up Chad's prowess as a lover and setting searing guitars to stun. It's hilarious fun and, the odd wobbly, earnest ballad aside, stays the course right up to good-time-rollin' country sing-song 'This Afternoon'.

But Dark Horse? Subtle as a sledgehammer, lewd as Roy "Chubby" Brown, this is keeping nothing under wraps. You can see its ridiculous triumph coming a mile off.

Matthew Horton

Picture: Wenn