Nickelback w/ Bush, Seether and My Darkest Days

Nickelback-bashing has become something of a national pastime, as evidenced by the uproar over the band's NFL halftime performance at Ford Field last Thanksgiving. Critics and the general public alike have long damned Nickelback with some truly hyperbolic hatred; a typical write-up on the band would have you believe they're the most vile hard-rock band of all time. They're not actually that bad, of course, but the Canadian group has nonetheless come to embody everything that's wrong with contemporary radio rock: the meathead machismo; the less-than-chivalrous depiction of the fairer sex; the gruntingwhy is there so, so much grunting? Nickelback probably won't win many new converts with their seventh album, last fall's <i>Here and Now</i>, but it's another radio-savvy effort from the group, generous with the gruff anthems that have become their calling card.