martindavey87 2011’s ‘Here and Now’ is the seventh studio album by Canadian rockers Nickelback, and yep, you guessed it, it’s similar to their previous few releases. But is that such a bad thing? The band have sold millions of albums and toured the world over, so they must be doing something right. They have a winning formula and they’ve stuck with it. Radio-friendly enough for the casual listener yet rocking enough for metal fans. Those willing to give the band a chance, that is. As is usually the case by now, the band can be hard and heavy enough for rock fans, yet some softer ballads allow the band to garner radio airplay. The production is top-notch, giving the band a full sound which really makes the rockier songs heavy as hell and gives the soft pop songs a warm, vibrant feel.

The lyrics, as always, range from the usual rock debauchery to more introspective and reflective themes. Sex, women and parties are usually at the top of the bill, but there are themes of unity, suicide and dependence too. For the most part, they’re usually a fine old slab of cheese, but anyone willing to dig a little deeper can see that occasionally the band can have something meaningful or poignant to say.

While Nickelback will never be known specifically for virtuoso musicianship, there’s no denying their penchant for writing catchy and memorable songs, and with beastly guitar riffs and pounding drums aplenty, there’s an abundance of quality material here. The likes of ‘This Means War’, ‘Bottoms Up’, ‘Lullaby’, ‘Kiss It Goodbye’, ‘When We Stand Together’ and ‘Trying Not to Love You’ are all exceptional rock songs that are certainly worth a listen or two. And while ‘Here and Now’ may not be anything groundbreaking or innovative, the truth is, it doesn’t need to be. This is good, quality hard rock at its finest.

Stephen 'Here and Now' marks the seventh release of Nickelback and looks like they try to calm the music down and introduced more midtempo and ballads, probably to help them gain more new listeners through the radio and media. I've heard a friend said that he read a horrendous report on Classic Rock Magazine, stating this album a disastrous 20% rating, while I don't crazily think that way, this album sure has too many flaws.

A wall divided this album by two obvious sides and I call the first side their best, and the second one is their trash. 'When We Stand Together' is a great acoustical / commercial tune; 'Lullaby' and 'Trying Not To Love You' are two awesome ballads; and they're smart enough to save the best song for the last. 'Don't Ever Let it End' has the best chorus here and overall the song is the peak of this album.

Now, aside from 'Bottoms Up' which I think is still pretty good, the rest are average to horrible, like 'Midnight Queen', 'Gotta Get Me Some', or 'Everything I Wanna Do', I recommend don't even bother at all. Despite that fact, I concur that Nickelback should deserve more appreciation especially from the 80s rock community because I can hear the influence since 'Dark Horse', which is no coincidence was produced by Mutt Lange, a man from that decade.

This is an average modern hard rock album and if you prefer only to have couple of killers, try those tracks I mentioned before and forget the rest, but if you can find it for a $1 or $2 at your nearest pawn shop, this isn't utterly bad like some has told. 60%