Our look at the closing lines of reactions to the week’s biggest new music continues with an overview of reviews of Nickelback’s Dark Horse, which arrives in stores tomorrow:

• “But in what qualifies as a sort of progress, here these songs are the most thoughtful. ‘Just to Get High’ is aimed at a friend who becomes a drug addict. And two of the album’s best numbers, ‘I’d Come for You’ and ‘Never Gonna Be Alone,’ are about asking for a second chance. Could it be that Nickelback has seen the error of its ways and is apologizing?” [NYT]

• “Lyrics revel in dorkitude, hair-metal style: ‘No class / No taste / No shirt / ‘N shitfaced.’ The two liveliest songs celebrate getting wasted with the bros; the most melodramatic laments a friend’s overdose. Lange keeps things rolling—and to his credit, Chad Kroeger gratifyingly comes off as more of a regular guy than a rock star.” [Rolling Stone]

• “The ballads–with the exception of the cheeky ‘This Afternoon’–define generic: glossy, hollow and insipid. The Skid Row-ish tale of a life wasted is a waste of four minutes you’ll never get back. If you want to hear the band’s first legit metal riff, download ‘Something In Your Mouth.’ ” [Boston Herald]

• “Their ability to switch effortlessly between R-rated Animal House antics (’No class, no taste / No shirt’n s–faced’) and earnest inspirational-poster goo (’Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind / And try to take the path less traveled’). A foolish consistency, after all, isn’t just the hobgoblin of little minds—it totally gets in the way of dudedom, too.” [Entertainment Weekly]

• “I guess there’s a large market for lowest common denominator, route one rock with all the excellence and drama removed, to be replaced with the leering cluelessness of best forgotten American ’80s outfits such as REO Speedwagon. This really is the flogging of a dead, not dark, horse. Take it to the glue factory.” [The Mirror]