Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

For many a band, home is perhaps somewhere only where you dump your stuff and put a fresh change of clothes into a bag before heading off onto the road again. The road, whether it’s a journey from Hell on the M6, somewhere between Bicester and Scotland or one of those cross-country runs underneath the open skies of the North American highway, can be all consuming and in the end nowhere feels native, everywhere feels as though you could settle down and find love; it is in the end the sign of the murky waters that goes with having No Fixed Address.

For Nickelback and their eighth studio album, No Fixed Address, the terminology is perhaps more of a double edged sword as, arguably unfairly, they take a lot of stick for their particular brand of Rock. It can often be a surprise to see how much bad press the Canadian band get for not being offensive, for producing some very good songs and for continuing to fill arenas. It somehow is the music equivalent of taking Stephen King or James Paterson for being prolific writers. It beggars belief at times that Nickelback, and individually Chad Kroger, can take so much vitriol for what is essentially good old fashioned stadium rock.

Nowhere may feel like home at times but the band have enough within them to make a place comfortable in the hearts of their fans and No Fixed Address is no different in that respect. It has the bounce and verve of albums past and plays over the speakers with the same charm as you would find being given in a stranger’s smile as you settle down to an evening pint in the Gown and Gavel in Hamilton.

With a moral boosting, engaging and engine revving set of openers, the album confirms that whilst some will always be ready to take Nickelback to task for imagined crimes against humanity, they certainly know how to grab the attention of the listener. Million Miles An Hour, the superb Edge of A Revolution and What Are You Waiting For? start the album as if the posturing and placing of a Formula One Grand Prix is akin to getting hold of three year old getting their first ramshackle and badly made kart.

To be caught with no No Fixed Address in many countries can lead to claims of vagrancy and have the prospect of jail time being administered, certainly benefits and credits would not be given, and yet for Nickelback’s latest album, credit where credit is due, the benefit is of one of getting the heart thumping from the initial burst of guitar and it is kept up throughout songs such as Satellite, She Keeps Me Up and Miss You.

Nickelback may not be everybody’s cup of tea but for the rest who enjoy the sense of belonging that the band inspires, No Fixed Address is one that is not a problem; it is just an album of upbeat tempo and guile.

Ian D. Hall