The Hives "Your New Favourite Band" 2002

If you like 60s garage punk, Raw-Power era Stooges, early Damned, the Dead Boys, and the Saints, you will like this. These guys manage to tie together the best of past punk sounds into one awesome new sound.Anyone expecting `The Hives', to play songs of slow poignant melancholy, will be sorely disappointed and well advised to look elsewhere, as this is about as Fast & Furious as it gets...and perfected magnificently by the rousing, passionate hollering's of singer/frontman "Howlin' Pelle Almqvist", whom screams and howls his way through every song, with the subtlety of a cricket ball smashing through a glass conservatory....and guitars rocking & Drums thumping with volume set to `Max'. And its surprisingly its actually very uplifting, with track 3 "Supply & Demand", clocking in at just under 2:27, and is as bone fide an anthem as Blur's "Song 2" is considered... and its not a one trick pony either, as "Hate to Say I Told You So", "Die, All Right!" & "Main Offender" are particularly well crafted Rock Songs that do a tremendous job of holding your attention completely. Obliviously this is not an album for when quieter music is needed....but Who Cares!??, this isn't what the band are trying to achieve, its all about foot to the floor furious Jams...and urging their listeners to `Nod their heads aggressively' (and maybe punch their hands into the air), and very few people can match (let alone surpass) these guys when it comes to that... essential. - By fetish_2000 (U.K.)
trax:
1. Hate To Say I Told You So 2. Main Offender 3. Supply And Demand 4. Die, All Right! 5. Untutored Youth 6. Outsmarted 7. Mad Man 8. Here We Go Again 9. A.K.A.I-D-I-O-T 10. Automatic Schmuck 11. Hail Hail Spit N ’Drool 12. The Hives Are Law, You Are Crime