THE HIVES

And here we are at the second of the Swedish garage rock double act. Of course, you might well have heard of the Hives as they've had a lot of press coverage recently due to a successful hyping campaign. This is to be expected, though, due to the fact they are a manufactured band. Yes, you heard me, they're manufactured. Not in the total respect in that they went through auditions and factory-line style assembly but someone else writes the songs (actually it turns out the guitarist writes the songs under a pseudonym) and they have been heavily marketed right down to the clothes they wear and the actions they go through on stage. Still, it hardly makes them artistically worthless but it is something that should be borne in mind. As I said in my Hellacopters review this album is, in fact, a compilation album released by Alan McGee's label, Poptones. Compiled from their first two albums, Barely Legal and Veni Vidi Vicious, and their EP "a.k.a I-D-I-O-T". Veni Vidi Vicious was the later album, I believe, and if the selection of songs are any indicator, the better of the two. A friend of mine actually bought Barely Legaland let's just say he is less than impressed. Certainly the first two songs are from Veni Vidi Vicious and are clearly the best two songs on the album. "Hate to Say I Told You So" is almost anthemic with a typical yet exhilarating chord progression. The section at the end where singer, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, really screams out the lyrics at an incredible pace is understandably the highlight of the song. There's a lot of cliches in that song alone but given the post-modern ironic nature of the Hives it is enjoyable rather than irritating. The second song, "Main Offender", is even better and is the song that brought the Hives to my attention. Again the chord progression is nothing new but it still has a great feel to it and Almqvist's vocals are simply superb; slightly distorted and with an impressive squeal for the chorus. Indeed Almqvist is pretty much the star of the album as his vocals are superb throughout, and utterly distinctive, unlike Nick Andersson's of the Hellacopters. The brilliantly titled "Die, All Right!" is also from the second album and is another exhilarating blast. Certainly the energy levels are at a real high throughout. The album is only twenty-eight minutes long but any longer may have overstated the case. The ferocity of the music demands that it be distributed in small doses. A song like "Untutored Youth" is just too fast to be even that comprehensible. Certainly it is a less than impressive song. You can tell by the way they come first that "Hate to Say I Told You So" and "Main Offender" are Randy Fitzsimmons' (the song-writer) real gems. The rest is merely very good. "a.k.a. I-D-I-O-T" is a stand-out track, though, and "Automatic Schmuck" almost is; both songs from Barely Legal. "Mad Man" is also pretty good although it is mainly worth mentioning for the section when Almqvist repeats the line "I get the feeling I've been cut down..." against a memorable guitar fill. They've got a fat guitarist, too, which is always funny. The album finishes with an instrumental called "The Hives are Law, You are Crime" which I'm not sure they even play on themselves but then that's part of the Hives' smoke-screen, I guess. It would be doing a disservice to the Hives themselves if I were to over-analyse this album so I won't. They might be a manufactured band with a cynical marketing ploy behind them but they sure know how to rock, nonetheless. The very zenith of Swedish retro garage rock. And what an accolade that is.

From: Sheila McCullough

I read your review of The Hives, and there are a few things I'd like to point out. You said it should be borne in mind that The Hives are a manufactured band, and that (to me) is a serious accusation. Your proofs of this are that: 1) someone else writes the songs, and 2) they're heavily marketed down to their clothes and their actions on stage. But the first point you disprove yourself, saying that the writer is actually the guitarist (Nick, I think you mean), which would mean the band writes their own material. I don't think that the Nick=Randy F. has been proven yet, as the band sticks tenuously to the idea that Randy isn't any one member of the band, but the person who brought them together. But some people say Nick had some sort of pseudoymn while still in high school, and it was Randy Fitzsimmons. Or it could be a collective name for all the members of the band as writers. The thing that most people overlook is that The Hives (especially Almqvist) are - quite honestly - liars. They say a lot of crap on purpose. They DO write their own songs, though - no such person as 'Randy F.' has ever been found, and there are pictures of them practicing as like, 12-year-olds, in a basement. What earthly reason they could have for perpetuating the potentially self-defeating idea that R.F. exists is unfathomable, unless it be that they like annoying people, which is actually a line in their lyrics 'my talent only goes as far as to annoy.' They like annoying the typical punks who suck at their music, but dress the grungy part and hate any band that gets anywhere for being 'sell-outs'. It's my theory that they dress the way they do and keep the myth of R.F. going in order to attract only people who actually look at the music and the talent rather than how the 'punk' the band appears.
So, and then there's the thing about their clothes - they do pick them carefully (everything is black and white), and Pelle is known for carefully orchestrating his stage moves, but the point is that it is the members of the band who are hyping themselves up, not someone else doing it for them. The whole pseudo-manufactured band thing is their kind of irony, to show their contempt for 'boy-bands.' They were apparently in negotiations for a contract with a certain record company, but the company wouldn't allow them to make all their own decisions about clothes, image, all that, so they turned it down and went with a record company that left decisions to them.
I think it's better that a band makes an effort to be entertaining rather than improvising everything and sucking on stage.

[These days, I am not terribly concerned with whether or not they are manufactured. The fact that they are rather rubbish is what generally informs my opinion of them - JF]

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Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk