There’s a joke in there somewhere, right? Nickelback releasing an album called Everything Under The Sun? A band whose career has been based on one literal handful of ideas that they’ve still ridden to fame and fortune?
True as that may be, though, the pose to live up to that title has evidently been doubled down on with this one. Having Mötley Crüe authenticator John 5 on early single Rattle The Cage is something (and Brent Smith and Zach Myers from Shinedown aren’t unbelievable inclusions), but then…Sammy Hagar? Joe Bonamassa? Co-writes from lovelytheband and Wu-Tang collaborator Kinetics? Ryan Reynolds?! This could be the furthest outside the box that Nickelback have stretched since featuring Flo Rida on 2014’s No Fixed Address. Not a tremendous barometer of quality, granted, but what else from that album are we still talking about?
With Everything Under The Sun, then…maybe don’t get your hopes up too high. To call those ‘features’ is to put way too much importance on what they bring. Ryan Reynolds, for instance, delivers one line of introductory dialogue on Technicolor Steamboat; all the others are part of the ensemble of Lift Somebody Up. And doesn’t that just say it all? Here’s the prime opportunity for Nickelback’s most interesting move to date, and it’s largely squandered. In favour of what? Why, another Nickelback album, of course!
That in itself doesn’t have to be bad. Remember that their last album Get Rollin’ produced San Quentin, which has since worked its way up to the upper echelons of Nickelback’s catalogue. Everything Under The Sun doesn’t have that, though. In fact, it’s more accurate to summarise it by saying that, even though it’s functionally just another of these in every measure, it’s still rather disappointing. Whereas a normal Nickelback album will do nothing to assert itself beyond the rank and file of their post-grunge / radio-rock dominance, you can tell it’s been attuned to the letter. Everything Under The Sun feels absent of even that. Rattle The Cage starts things off and it’s abundantly clear how bad Chad Kroeger sounds, even after decades of acclimating to his foghorn. He’s more strained and throaty as usual, where it feels as though it might actually be hurting him to sing like this.
If that were the only moment of unfortunate mismanagement, it could be swept aside if the rest were up to par. But it’s not. Instead, Everything Under The Sun appears to be retrying the route of 2011’s Here & Now in its overproduction, though by a considerable amount more. All the filmy, wishy-washy layers are a chronic distraction, and a glut of already-middling songs just drowns in them. You can maybe imagine the intent of misty-eyed optimism and whooshing nostalgia put forth on I Already Know or Simple Song, but that’s just sapping away what little flavour Nickelback have to begin with.
What makes it worse is how, at a fundamental level, Everything Under The Sun is still a Nickelback album. The broad, unshaken templates they’ve operated on since time immemorial haven’t gone anywhere, and it makes it all the easier to pick apart when they’re delivering worse versions of some of their biggest hits. Chasin’ Famous leaps out most, as it looks down its nose at influencer culture like the Grumpy Old Man version of Rockstar. Last Night Was Fun, too, makes its debauchery sound as workmanlike as possible, a colicky slog against the loose, light This Afternoon. (Side note: the idea of 51-year-old Chad Kroeger being scolded by his parents is made even more laughable when it’s played totally straight-faced.)
On songs like these in the past, Nickelback had a bravado or sense of humour, so even if the songs were low-brow, there was a base entertainment value to them. Everything Under The Sun seems to actively reject the idea, as if Nickelback are trying to atone for the wrong sins. It makes even their most basic archetypes feel drained. Rattle The Cage and Bones For The Crows are the two customary ‘rockers’, but are too stiff and stodgy to catch fire. Later, Leave Me Behind wants to be inducted into the extensive pantheon of Nickelback ballads, but a country-rock clunker that endlessly stumbles over itself is no kind of fit (especially when Make Me Love You does a far better job).
On a brighter note, it’s not all bad. In the way that Nickelback can average out a couple of good ones each time, so too is the case with Everything Under The Sun. Lift Somebody Up is worth a mention as, although it’s unclear what its array of guests actually all do, it’s nonetheless a dad-rock banger that Nickelback are more than equipped for. The other highlights follow a similar pattern—shouldered with one unnecessary caveat but able to rise above it. If I Don’t Go is excessively produced, but between lyrics about escaping a stifling hometown, its brisk pace and a genuinely good delivery, there’s some tangible desperation in it. Similarly, the tinny layers emanating from Kroeger’s voice on Technicolor Steamboat are horrible, but on a gentler, Beatles-inspired number with actual sitar, it’s the closest that Nickelback would dare get to full psychedelia.
The presence of those songs arguably makes Everything Under The Sun feel even more like a true Nickelback album. Despite every factor that wants to hamper and hem-in as much as possible, there’s still a gem or two that floats to the surface. That is needed more here than with most, too. Everything Under The Sun simultaneously feels like a band spinning their wheels and somehow getting lost from it. For as much as Nickelback don’t need to make ‘good’ albums anymore, this still falls beneath a suitable threshold in some pretty obvious ways. It’s dull; it’s forgettable; it’s the kind of fodder that sinks into a catalogue as big as theirs before long and is never fished out again. Turns out ‘everything under the sun’ is far narrower than it sounds.
For fans of: Daughtry, Shinedown, Theory Of A Deadman
‘Everything Under The Sun’ by Nickelback is out now on Virgin Music.
Words by Luke Nuttall
