I enjoy this Rolling Stone review because of the capsule explanation of the other garage bands (second paragraph)....
The Hives
Tyrannosaurus Hives
3.5 stars
Originally released: 2004
Universal Music Group
For the stellar garage-rock class of 2002, it's time to show and prove. The Hives blew out of Sweden a couple of years ago, riding the maniac guitar attack "Hate to Say I Told You So," part of a wave of hot young bands giving rock & roll a desperately needed kick in the ass. Like the Strokes, the Stripes and the Vines, the Hives arrived in style. They had matching black-and-white suits, party-commando lyrics, a drummer who must have done time, cheap Detroit-style punk riffs and madman vocalist Howlin' Pelle Almqvist. They also had a killer single: "Hate to Say I Told You So" was a Swedish version of Blur ripping Pavement ripping Big Black ripping the Music Machine ripping the Stones -- and an instant classic.
Now the Hives face the same question as their garage comrades: What do you do for an encore? Well, if you're the Strokes, you could streamline your original rhythmic concept on a sharp new bunch of songs and prove yourselves as groove masters. If you're the White Stripes, you could stretch out stylistically, indulge all your sickest pretensions and prove you can get away with anything except letting the drummer sing. You could also get drastically better (the Von Bondies), have your lead singer lose his mind on drugs (the Libertines), try to sell your fans weak outtakes from your first album (the Vines) or attempt a song titled "Hong Kong Fury" (the Datsuns). Or you could just plain suck as bad as any of the new-metal dinosaurs you were supposed to replace (Jet).
But the Hives have a smart strategy: They strip it down beyond minimalism, refining their sound to an elemental buzz and blast with a scientific sense of precision. Tyrannosaurus Hives is so tight and efficient, it makes Veni Vidi Vicious sound almost like it came from a jam band. It adds Devo-like keyboards to the same mechanically engineered herky-jerk riff, set on "stun," for a filler-free half-hour of fast thrills -- thirty minutes and five seconds, actually. Almqvist has a violent relationship with the English language, screaming over the top as high-speed riffs such as "Abra Cadaver," "Walk Idiot Walk," "Antidote" and "See Through Head" go slamming into one another like an ugly day at the go-kart track.
The only stylistic departure is a great one -- the near-ballad "Diabolic Scheme," a brazenly synthed-up rip of James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." Almqvist lets his tortured wail fly ("I had time well spent/I got your mind well bent") over a fake string section and a guitar solo that eerily replicates the sound of the late Robert Quine. Elsewhere, the Hives are more at home just revving the tempo and letting the staccato guitars beat each other senseless, as in the album's finest moment, "B Is for Brutus," which takes less than three minutes to play and might have even taken longer to write. The Hives may be hard-partying rock animals, but from the sound of Tyrannosaurus Hives, they're also a tribute to the precision and power of Swedish engineering.
ROB SHEFFIELD
(Posted Aug 05, 2004)
