Artist: Nickelback
Album: Get Rollin'
Release Date: November 18, 2022
If you look back five years ago, your life was probably very different. The world itself was different in many ways as well. If you're older, maybe you got married and had kids. If you're younger maybe you're in college now and away from home. Five years is also the last time Nickelback released a studio album and is the longest gap between releases in the band's history. It's hard to believe it, but these guys aren't young anymore. Chief songwriter Chad Kroeger turned 48 just three days before this album hit the shelves. How has it changed this band? Not very much... and I think that's a good thing in NB's case.
In an ever-changing world, its good to have some constants to keep us sane. The sun rises. The coffee is hot. Tom Brady is playing on Sunday and Nickelback is releasing catchy hard rockers alongside some heartfelt sappy ballads. All is right.
My first plays of "Get Rollin'" were in the car. Nickelback, for me, has been reliable car music over the years. When All The Right Reasons came out in 2005, my dad enjoyed it so much as well that it was regularly played in our truck. A couple of years later this CD was a common choice when me and a close friend would make trips up to Boston. When Dark Horse came out, I remember being with another friend and that album was again a car album.
Of course, Nickelback can't be mentioned without the backlash of Nickelback. Needless to say, despite being a fan since I first heard "How You Remind Me" back when I was 13 years old in 2001, they weren't always a popular choice to listen to in car rides or request at parties, so while those old friends from high school went off and did their own things, Nickelback almost became sort of a guilty pleasure band for me. Not that I was ashamed to be a fan, but I wouldn't tell my underground metalhead friends "hey, Lullaby is a pretty sweet ballad, huh?" more so just to avoid an argument about the band.
This was until I met my future wife, who I wouldn't know was a big Nickelback fan until years after we met for the same reasons I wouldn't bring up this band in mixed musical company -- out of fear of having to argue about them. We both bonded over Creed, who experienced a very similar backlash that Nickelback did, and naturally, Nickelback would come up as well. From thereon, Nickelback would find its way back in the car. The Dark Horse album we picked up at a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri has been played from the midwest to New England many times since. When we grew tired of that, we reminisced over All The Right Reasons. Going through an old box of CD's I found my friend's old copy of Silver Side Up -- scratched to hell and missing the jewel case, but it worked!
So, it seemed only fitting that with a day trip planned that had us going from the border of Rhode Island up north to Middlesex county, Massachusetts to play this new release in the car. I have the deluxe version that features four acoustic versions of some of the songs at the end of the disc.
