The Hives - Black And White Album
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Free Music Notes for Black And White Album
Free Music Review: The Hives - Black And White Album 7.5/10
Hit: 4 Stars
Remember mainstream rock radio in 2001? Bands that were about as groundbreaking as a Nickelodeon cartoon held the top positions, such artistic visionaries as Creed, Puddle of Mudd, Lifehouse, and the last gasp of nu-metal, Linkin' Park.
Then something strange happened. Something fresh started popping up on the radio, heralded by a number of plural-noun bands such as the Strokes and the White Stripes, something the music press dubbed the "garage-rock revival."
At the forefront of this new rock was Sweden's The Hives, bursting out of the frozen north in matching black-and-white suits and ties and ridiculous stage names. Singer "Howlin'" Pelle Almqvist made the band's live shows legendary with his crowd-surfing antics, and the band's breakthrough, Your New Favourite Band, gave them major-label backing.
Two albums later and six years later, The Hives return to the States with The Black and White Album, a record that maintains the raucous punk spirit of their earlier albums while showing a novel musical direction that saves the album from repeating the trends of its predecessors.
Opener and first single "Tick Tick Boom" opens with a distinctive pulsating guitar line and Almqvist's trademark yell, a typical Hives song opening up what at first seems to be a typical Hives album. Complete with back-and-forth backup shouts and a fist-pumping chorus, the track is intensely enjoyable, but it is nothing a Hives fan wouldn't expect.
The album starts to veer off into uncharted territory around the Pharrell Williams-produced "Well Allright!," a bouncy, swing-flavored rave-up that manages to sound fresh without completely redefining the band's sound.
"A Stroll Through Hive Manor Corridors" is perhaps the oddest addition to the Hives discography, an instrumental interlude halfway through the album solely featuring a drum machine and what sounds like a B-horror movie `50s soundtrack. Although initially interesting, it fails to evolve much beyond a creepy melody.
The album ends with the one-two punch of "Puppet On A String" and "Bigger Hole To Fill," both typing up the record's creative loose ends. "Puppet On A String," currently being featured on the Cartoon Network, utilizes only piano and handclaps and Almqvist's nonsensical lyrics ("got your education from just hanging around / you got your brain from a hole in the ground") to solidify the Hives' acceptance of experimentation.
"Bigger Hole to Fill" ends the collection on a triumphant note, producing yet another catchy chorus anchored by a jagged guitar line and a simple rock beat and serving to assure the listener that the Hives won't be abandoning their trademark sound anytime soon.
While The Black and White Album proves that sometimes some adventurous tinkering produces some intriguing new possibilities, it also affirms that if it isn't broken, it doesn't have to be fixed.
Free Music Review: We rule the world...this is the world!
Hit: 4 Stars
There is an air of last-ditch desperation surrounding The Hives' latest full-length album. But it is - like Veni Vidi Vicious and Tyrannosaurus Hives - plagued by the band's biggest asset/detriment. From the beginning, The Hives have maintained that they are the only band that matters, from "The Hives are law; You are crime" to the brazen cockiness of calling a CD Your New Favorite Band. That attitude lends itself to the full-on assault that makes the opening salvo "Tick Tick Boom" a turbo charged potential garage rock classic, and then the hook-laden second track, "Try It Again" is all dance-floor stomp with a kiddie chorus. Do you miss The Ramones? Pine for Detroit noise from early Iggy or The MC5? These tracks and "Return The Favor" fill that bigger hole and The Hives are ready to do anything in their considerable powers to insure that you not only hear it, but feel it.
Those first two songs are everything The Hives (and their most rabid legion of fans) claim they are. Twin guitar slams of attitudes that just overwhelm you with their energy and frontman "Howling" Pete's undeniable force of rock. But that all-encompassing belief that they are an amazing band and you need to know it forces dopey leftovers like the instrumental "A Stroll Through Hive Manor Corridors" and the draggy piano based "Puppet on a Sting" left on a CD to show the band's warts. For The Hives detractors, these indulgences (including the DEVO-ish "Giddy Up") are all the evidence they need to dismiss the band as cartoon posers, Stooges wannabes without the guts to make it stick.
"The Black and White Album" is the sound of The Hives trying to overcome that adversarial barrier to the stardom they obviously feel they deserve. The two tracks with Pharrel Williams, "Well All Right!" and "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S" scream mainstream single, with the self-shout-out of "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S" seeming to beg for success ala Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust." (I should add that it is my second or third favorite track on the CD.) This may also be the cleanest sounding Hives album so far, forcing their neo-garage assault into sharp, and yes, black-and-white relief. It makes "The Black and White Album" The Hives' most adventurous and (dare I say it) most likely album for world-class success.
Free Music Review: This is one fun album to listen to...
Hit: 4 Stars
The Hives' "Black and White Album" is exactly what you think it's going to be...a series of catchy, manic songs crisply played with abandon.
The album roars from the start, with the terrific one-two punch of "Tick Tick Boom" and "Try It Again". "Tick" kickstarts everything with a fake-tune-up, wandering-around-the-stage snippet of noise, before launching into howling "Yeahs!" Churning guitars back up the ping-pong vocals, and the sudden silent brake stops are thrilling. LOOOOOVE the "booms". It's a kick.
"Try It Again", with plenty of power chords to pogo to, just blasts out of speakers. The sassy cheerleading backups somehow work...this is modern rock that has an equal chance of making you smile as make you dance.
As other reviewers have noted, there's a "sameness" to many of the tracks, and they proudly wear their influences on their collective sleeves. That's fine with me. I listen to a Hives song to get exactly this sort of vibe and energy, and they are perfectly happy to supply me with some. Smart bands know how to incorporate their history with their "art". I find it fun to pick out the "Devo" moment, or their Midnight Star crib.
"Midnight Star" you ask? Well, I have to admit, during the song, "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S." I couldn't get the "Z.O.I.D.S." spelling chant out of my head, from the song, "Freak-a-zoid." But the chorus also has an 80's New Wave sound as well...
"Square One Here I Come" is another headlong sprint of a rock song, with an irresistible guitar hook. Actually, the song has like FOUR guitar hooks...man, if this song had been around for those Airband Mock Rock contests back at UCLA in the early 80's...
This is one fun album to listen to...
Free Music Review: 3.5 Stars... So-so album of the Hives... but still, it's the Hives!
Hit: 4 Stars
The Hives took again a very long time to come up with new material after 2004's "Tyranossaurus Hives" album, the band's third album (after 1997's Barely Legal and 2000's Veni Vidi Vicious albums), but in Fall '07 the most impeccably dressed Swedish rockers finally return with a new album.
"The Black and White Album Album" (14 tracks, 45 min.) starts off with a blasting "Tick Tick Boom" and we're off to the races. The first third of the album is impeccable, as one rousing track after another follows, all the way through track 5 ("Hey Little World"). Then a curious thing happens: a short instrumental interlude on organ ("A Stroll Through Hive Manor Corridors"), signaling the beginning of the next chapter on this album, and strangely from there on, the album becomes a hit-and-miss proposition: "T.H.E.H.IV.E.S." works great, but "Giddy Up!" misfires badly; "Square One Here I Come" and "Puppet On A String" are unremarkable, but "Return the Favour" and the closer "Bigger Hole to Fill" are tops, the latter a very nice way to close things off.
In all, "The Black and White Album" is not bad, but in comparison to the other albums the Hives have released so far, it is the weakest, as in: least remarkable, album to date. Then again, these are the Hives, and so this is better than 90% of what's being released these days, so it's all relative. I was supposed to see thed Hives in concert a couple of weeks ago, but due to illness regretfully had to miss it. I hope it's just a matter of time before I can hopefully see these guys live at some point!
Free Music Review: I Didn't Expect This Much Progression...
Hit: 4 Stars
While tearing the celophane off my new copy of The Black And White Album, I was expecting some - but not much - progression from the last record. Taking a step back to 2004, I liked what I heard on Tyrano Hives: basically the same loud, fast, energy-packed vibe as the fantastically great Veni Vidi Vicious only with some new electronic accompaniment. But overall, nothing exactly surprised me. So as I listened to the B&W Album's opener, I was a little disappointed because I was hearing a song that could've easily been found on either of the previous two records. However, after that the similarities became much less obvious. Instead of another safe album in the same vein as the first two, the band definitely took some chances on this one - namely in the form of widespread keyboard additions, new tempos, and some different tweaks from Mr. Almqvist on vocals. I'll leave it to the other reviewers to give you a track-by-track rundown, just know that the start/finish of this album will be very familiar to Hives fans but everything inbetween varies from new to strange to familiar in no particular order. A nice step forward indeed.