Nickelback have been the butt of every joke for the last 25 years, and defending them has always been an uphill climb; yes, their ballads are corny; yes, they were massively overplayed in the 2000s; yes, Chad Kroeger has the personality of an office microwave, but through it all, the band have managed to put out some fist-pumping rock’n’roll anthems worth paying attention to. Now that we’re way past their commercial prime, the only reason we’re bothering to go over their eleventh studio album is to declare that the group are still worth making fun off: 2026’s ‘Everything Under The Sun’ is just as awful as you’d assume it to be.

You might hit play on opener ‘Rattle The Cage’ and think ‘hey, this isn’t so bad— the reviewers are unfairly slating Nickelback once again’ but that, dear readers, is how they get you every single time. ‘San Quentin,’ ‘Feed the Machine,’ ‘Million Miles an Hour,’ these were all attempts from Kroeger and company to lull you into a false sense of security, kicking off their last few records with high-energy numbers that had the Canadian four-piece beginning to sound like an actual rock band! This time around, the throaty bass and well-suited guest solo from John 5 make for a solid tone-setter for the project (and a much-needed reminder of the alternative rock the group first made a name for themselves with), and the following ‘Bones For The Crows’ is a genuine success, through-and-through. Nickelback have us right where they want us: now the disappointment begins.

The band’s reputation for writing pointless flowery ballads might’ve been oversold at one point— the sheer inescapability of hits like ‘Rockstar’ and ‘Photograph’ didn’t help, in fairness— but ‘Everything Under The Sun’ seems determined to press that message into the group’s gravestone. If the record was meant to be a variety piece, as its title implies, then it fails miserably: ‘Bones For The Crows’ will be a distant memory long before you’re done slogging your way through this sorry excuse for a tracklist. The first up to bat, that being ‘I Already Know,’ leans into many of Nickelback’s worst traits from the off, with its needlessly pretty guitar strumming and nebulous romantic platitudes grating against Kroeger’s rumbling delivery. This is what you’ll be subjected to again and again on the band’s longest album since their debut.

It feels almost pointless to tear these songs apart point by point, because each one is already buried under the same wave of criticisms that choked ‘Savin’ Me’ and ‘Far Away’ two decades ago. You can predict every sentimental piano note in ‘Make Me Love You’ before the track gets underway, and the ho-hum empowerment of ‘If I Don’t Go’ and the star-fuelled ‘Lift Somebody Up’ suffer similarly— the dreamy Americana of ‘Technicolor Steamboat’ is certainly more of a surprise, you’d have to give it that, but it’s not a cut that’s actually out to turns heads… or go anywhere… or be paid attention to at all. If there is a standout among the bunch, it’s probably ‘Leave Me Behind,’ which has a gravity to it its peers are solely lacking. That goodwill is more than undone by ‘Simple Song’ though, a sickening apolitical anthem as sappy as anything Nickelback have ever put together.

It’s tempting to try to piece together how an album this banal even happens, and the most obvious answer is simply that this is Kroeger and company on autopilot. Now more than twenty years removed from the stardom of ‘All The Right Reasons,’ the crew are well-and-truly running on empty— it feels like the scattered tracklist of 2014’s ‘No Fixed Address’ was their last attempt to break through into the mainstream, leaving every subsequent release to meander its way towards inevitable obscurity. Nickelback are still a household name, of course, but they’re never going to write anything with the staying power of ‘How You Remind Me’ at this point. On ‘Everything Under The Sun,’ the band sound like they’ve resigned themselves to treading water before they retire, leaving us to deal with the likes of ‘Bottled Dreams’ and ‘Last Night Was Fun.’

So no, Nickelback’s eleventh album isn’t very good, and if we’re being honest, why would it be? The group have been weathering their god-awful reputation since the turn of the century, leaving them with a bucketload of hits, a metric tonne of record sales, and a new release with absolutely nothing to say. It’s probably time for the four-piece to enjoy the spoils of their long and successful career, settle in as a legacy act, and please, for our sakes, stay out of the studio.