When people think of how Nickelback sounds, the album Curb (Shoreline, 1996) might not come to mind. It's passionate, raw and heavy.
If someone hates them but wants to get into the band, I'd recommend Detangler, Falls Back On, Left and the closer I Don't Have.
After landing a deal with the biggest record company in Canada, their sound becomes streamlined on The State (EMI, 1999)
that a casual rock fan can listen to easily. To summarize Silver Side Up (Roadrunner, 2001), this record is just banger after banger.
There's not a single bad moment on here, it contains the monster hit How You Remind Me and they manage to perfect rock music,
taking everything Kurt Cobain did and make it ten times better. It opens with the extremely dramatic Never Again about a desire to
beat up a guy who hit his girlfriend. These riffs let you know how flawless everything is about to be. Some stand-out picks are
Money Bought, Hollywood, Where Do I Hide, the beautifully structured Too Bad and head banging Just For, which is an
amazing updated version of a track on their debut. The Long Road (Roadrunner, 2003) is Nickelback's magnum opus, giving
you a serious bang for your buck. All killer no filler. It opens with their fastest and heaviest song Flat on the Floor. While we hear
an identical chord progression of How You Remind Me on the next track Do This Anymore uses the but with even better riffs added.
All the Right Reasons (Roadrunner, 2005) is a mammoth of singles, but more inconsistent than their previous albums. ZZ Top
has a feature in the opening song Follow You Home, they pay tribute to the late Dimebag Darrell on Side of a Bullet, and perform
a beautiful ballad Far Away. I'd recommend checking out the 2022 remaster of this album, it improves the original mix a lot.