British Columbian band Nickelback blend low-fidelity electric guitar tremolo with warm, acoustic strumming and soulful singing. Although the vocalist treads into melodramatic territory at times, he's sporadically accompanied in refreshing vocal harmony by his bandmates. These are catchy alternative rock songs that (predictably) explode into overdriven, distorted choruses complete with the vocalist's grungy growl. Nickelback's popularity began to gather steam with the single "Leader of Men," off their second self-released album The State. The song got tons of airplay on Canadian radio and soon the American label Roadrunner signed them. They ended up on a tour with Creed. In 2001, Silver Side Up yielded subsequent hits and the band found themselves in the same company as Creed, Fuel and other highly popular post-grunge bands of the time. With anthemic post-grunge rock music no longer in vogue by 2003, the band's star faded somewhat. In 2005, Nickelback returned, with All the Right Reasons. They had successfully morphed out of the Eddie Vedderisms of yore into a more traditional rock band and once again found themselves in the charts. Or near them anyway.
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