HINDER: "All American Nightmare"

Rating: 7/10

Label: Universal Records 2010

Review by Kimmo Toivonen

Hinder scored big with their debut album "Extreme Behaviour", selling triple platinum in the States. It was a decent album of Nickelback'ish modern hard rock, but paled in comparison to their second album "Take It To The Limit", which had a more of an eighties' vibe and plenty of killer songs. Despite that, the album wasn't such a big hit, and now with their third album, Hinder is trying to find their way back to the platinum league. We'll see if that happens...

After first listen, this album sounded very ballad/mid-tempo driven. It is actually 50/50, with half of the songs more or less balladic and the other half more hard rockin' uptempo songs. Unfortunately the rockers are mostly really average and dull, full of attitude but not a lot of memorable hooks. The only rocker that gets my vote is "Striptease" with its' rumbling bassline and cool lyrics ("You better shake that ass because we all know you can't sing"). Yeah, it's all about those plastic pop starlets...

Hinder have always known how to write a good ballad, and the slower tracks save this album too. "Everybody's Wrong", "Red Tail Lights" and "The Life" are all excellent songs, and the remaining two tracks aren't too bad either. There's certainly serious hit potential in these songs, and with a bit of luck and successful marketing, the band might find themselves on the top of the charts with one of them. However, I must say that after the brilliant "Take It To The Limit", "All American Nightmare" with its' mediocre rockers is a bit disappointing.


Website

MySpace