Silver Side Up

iTunes Review

"Never Again" kicks off a dark album that coincidentally came out a dark day — September 11, 2001 — with a powerfully gripping song about domestic violence. Silver Side Up finds frontman Chad Kroeger and company pushing the post-grunge envelope with mechanized production and distorted vocals. Compared to Nickelback's preceding albums, Silver Side Up also uses more narrative based lyrics to shed light on the kinds of doleful human experiences that can't be solved by Dr. Phil. The slower moving but equally poignant "Too Bad" similarly touches on a different kind of familial abuse; neglect. Kind of a modernized, hard rocking take on Harry Chapin's "Cat's In The Cradle," the subject of this song is a young man looking back on all the times that his father wasn't there when he needed him most, resenting how it shaped who he has become. The subject of volatile relationships is explored in the album's standout track, "How You Remind Me," but it's the pummeling "Hangnail" that cemented the band's reputation as the keepers of the grunge flame.