All the Right Reasons

1	Follow You Home 4:20
2	Fight for All the Wrong Reasons 3:44
3	Photograph 4:18
4	Animals 3:06
5	Savin' Me 3:39
6	Far Away 3:58
7	Next Contestant 3:34
8	Side of a Bullet 3:00
9	If Everyone Cared 3:38
10	Someone That You're With 4:01
11	Rockstar 4:15

Barnes & Noble

Knowing when to flex their muscle and when to wear their hearts on their collective sleeve -- that's the wisdom that separates these Canadians from their mainstream hard-rock peers. Sure, a lot of bands try to play both sides of the game, but frontman Chad Kroeger's supple pipes and knack for cranking out heartfelt power ballads (like the chart-storming "Photograph") give Nickelback a leg up on the rest. All the Right Reasons is divided relatively evenly between those eminently sing-along-worthy mid-tempo tracks and decidedly heavier numbers, most notably the punishing "Side of a Bullet" -- which contains posthumous guitar work from former Damageplan axe-man "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, whose brother donated the tapes for the song, a tribute to the slain musician. There are a few surprises on All the Right Reasons, such as "Next Contestant," which opens on a jittery, syncopated note that has a decidedly Euro vibe, then explodes into panoramic, '80s-styled harmonies. When attempting to get back in touch with their sensitive side, the boys tend to get a little too mawkish -- "Savin' Me" would be an agreeable enough tough-guy ballad were it not so fussily dressed up in strings and piano -- but at least Nickelback aren't treading water in the manner of so many nü-metallers. And when they manage to catch a particularly buoyant wave -- as on "Someone That You're With," which has an almost Soul Asylum–like ambience -- it's clear that, while their sound may sometimes come across as mercenary, Nickelback are making music for All the Right Reasons. David Sprague

All Music Guide

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 grunge behind: they're a modern rock 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 All the Right Reasons, 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, Nickelback tries a few new things here, adding more pianos, keyboards, and acoustic guitars to not just ballads, 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 Nickelback album, but it doesn't really change their essence. Stephen Thomas Erlewine