After moving 8 million copies of All the Right Reasons, these Canadian hosers can do whatever the hell they want, and they sure are in a feisty mood. From “How You Remind Me” in 2001 to “Rockstar” in 2007, Nickelback have thrived because mega is the only volume they know. Chad Kroeger brings his full tonsil-toasting wail to every chorus, and the aura of overstatement helps him translate all-American (North American, that is) daydreams into grandiose power-ballad meatballs. He just wants to tell the world that nobody will push him around (“Get your hands off this glass/Last call, my ass”) or stop him from meeting special ladies. You have to admit, there’s something Zen about a rock anthem called “S.E.X.” where the chorus goes, “Sex is always the answer/It’s never a question/’Cause the answer is yes.”

It’s a steadfast assault, whether he’s brooding over dust in the wind (“If Today Was Your Last Day”) or idealizing a girl (“She ain’t no Cinderella when she gettin’ undressed/’Cause she rocks it like the naughty Wicked Witch of the West”). The casting coup is producer Mutt Lange, who runs with the tricks he used on Def Leppard and AC/DC in the ’80s: lotsa echo on the drums, lotsa background voices chanting, “Hey!” Dark Horse breaks down into four songs about strippers, three songs about love, three about getting trashed and one about the meaning of life. Needless to say, the stripper songs are the catchiest, especially “Shakin’ Hands,” about a vixen who seems to have wandered in from the Poison song next door—she’s so brazen, “she’d break a promise in the Promised Land.” “Get High” is an anti-drug tale from the crack side and “Next Go Round” celebrates the act of physical love (“I wanna cover you with Jell-O in the tub”).

In the brilliant honky-tonk goof “This Afternoon,” Kroeger vows to lie on the couch all day, “hittin’ the bong like a diesel train,” saluting Bob Marley and Cheech & Chong. It seems instinctive for him to switch into the sweeping, basically anonymous mode that’s served Heartland rock ballads since the late-’70s heyday of Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” It’s just a little bit odd that it takes a quartet of Canadians to carry on a noble American tradition.

DOWNLOAD “Shakin’ Hands,” “S.E.X.”