Theory Of A Deadman: Savages

Nickelback protégées’ chart-chasing fifth outing.

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A distinct credibility problem hasn’t stopped this Canadian mob from gaining regular US radio hits, and there could well be another couple here.

Blow’s chorus observes, ‘Sometimes it makes me wanna blow my fucking head off,’ alongside lyrics swiping at such controversial targets as Chris Brown and Kim Kardashian, and it’s surely tailor-made for teenagers to share YouTube links to.

Elsewhere, when they turn their hand to churning metal riffs, as on Misery Of Mankind, they sound pretty damn good. But more often, the synthetic radio-friendly sheen they insist on adding to their low-calorie post-grunge pop makes it all sound about as convincing as Daniel Bedingfield moaning about his tax bill.

Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock