Hi, everyone. Slickthony Ricktano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Hives album, The Hives Forever Forever The Hives.

This is the seventh full-length record from Swedish garage rock legends, The Hives. A band that arrived in the late '90s, hit it big in the early 2000s, and really caught on to the garage rock revival, garage punk fusion wave that was very popular at the time. Not because the band was simply chasing a trend. I mean, with hit songs like "Hate to Say I Told You So", you could argue they were very much helping to set the trend. In fact, I would even actually say there are bands still to this day who, if they're in the know, showcase a bit of Hives' influence in their sound, like Honningbarna's recent record, which I loved.

But yeah, sadly, despite the Hives not being in any way, shape, or form, one of these boring, bland, professionalized garage rock bands that hit it big in the 2000s, – like a Jet, as it were – they still don't really get, I think, the credit or the critical acclaim that I think a lot of bands in the garage rock revival lane do.

I do understand why to an extent, because it's not like they're the most artsy or versatile band out there in modern garage. In fact, I think you could even argue that they are maybe even consistent to a fault, because still to this day, I feel like this new record over here, it's something that a casual listener could completely write off as just saying, Yep, it's a Hives album that sounds like a hives album.

I can't deny that the Hives Forever Forever the Hives certainly does sound like a Hives album. I mean, the title of the record, I think, even speaks to that self-awareness. But I feel like saying that about any particular Hives album is maybe just being a bit too reductive. I mean, it's not as if each Hives album doesn't have its own direction and personality. Most certainly they do. I think every one of the band's seven records thus far has added an interesting chapter to their overall catalog, whether you're talking about the very fast, intense, hardcore punk vibes and influences that run throughout their debut, the garage and fast-paced punk suite spot that they hit upon with their sophomore record, Veni Vidi Vicious.

Then following that, we saw Tyrannosaurus Hives, which brought in a bunch of influences from hard rock and classic rock with a lot of riffs and guitar work and vocal passages that felt not only very like Rolling Stones-inspired, but occasionally, AC/DC, too. Their sound progressively got more slick on the Black and White album. The record that they dropped before basically the 10 years of studio album silence, following that, Lex Hives. That one, in my opinion, was a little all over the place and saw them, sure, sticking to their garage rock roots, but also embracing song structures and chorus styles that had maybe a bit more of a pop flair, somewhat hookier vocal deliveries from frontman HP Almqvist, which I think were maybe employed to take the edge off the band's sound a little bit.

Then after this, years later down the road, we saw the band embracing their legend status, as it were, with their comeback album, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons.

On this new record over here, not only through its title, but through its album art as well, it seems like the band is making a conscious nod to some dynasty, musically, as it were, which despite the lack of long term critical acclaim for the Hives, I do think they actually have some claimed to to some degree, because when it comes to the garage revivalist wave the band originally made a name for themselves in. Few groups have lasted as long as they have or have done as well to stick to their roots. Plus, I mean, with the Hives, across their entire catalog, the quality is at least there to some degree in every pocket. Even their worst records have a handful of great tunes.

But I think this new LP over here could prove to be a real fan favorite, depending on what it is exactly you love from the group in certain parts of their catalog. I mean, if you very much favor the raw, noisy, wild performances of their first couple of records, then I think The Hives Forever Forever the Hives is very much going to be for you, because all over this record, the riffs, the drums, the vocals are gnarly, are blaring, are overdriven, are just intensely loud. The Hives Forever Forever the Hives is truly one of the most deafening albums this band has put together in years.

That is apparent from really just the opening first full song on the record, "Enough is Enough", a track that is every bit as confrontational as its title professes to be, not only through all the fed up, pent up anger that is communicated through the chorus's central message, but even the opening lines of the song: "Everyone's a little fucking bitch/ And I'm getting sick and tired of this." It's very much like a Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff", every man's anger anthem. Yeah, sure, while the anger and the lyricism and the whole vibe of the thing might come across as a little hyperbolic, the performance is tight enough and compelling enough to really get you wrapped up in the vibe and the message of the song.

Comparatively, the following "Hooray Hooray Hooray" is a lot more slick with its tight, angular guitar leads and punchy driving drums. The character portrait going on in the lyrics of this person who essentially was given and had everything at one point and just squandered it through their own idiocy. There's a couple of choruses worth of catchy ideas flowing throughout this track, throughout the calls of "everything, everything," and "hooray, hooray, hooray." It still shows that after all these years, the band not only still has a lot of fire and aggression to their performance style and the way that they record in the studio, but on top of that, they could still write a really catchy, straightforward hooky song.

After this, the song "Bad Call" also contributes to a very solid run of tracks in the first half of this album, as it's this nasty, low-down bruiser of a track with these "Bad call" group vocals that, once again, are performatively nasty and dirty and weirdly mean in the way that a classic AC/DC song is. But the Hives are still so good at pulling that energy off in a really convincing way.

Following this, "Paint a Picture" is a track that not only does a great job of balancing garage and punk aesthetics, like many songs off the band's second album, but also I really love the loose and unpredictable way in which they break into a much slower tempo with pounding, driving rhythms and groups going on behind the chorus. That slow down and that change up is just so unforeseen and so random. But once the band really locks into the groove after that transition, it sounds so goddamn good and cathartic.

"O.C.D.O.C." is another very early Hives track where they're really just firing on all cylinders, trying to write the fastest and shortest song they possibly can. After all these years, decades after 1997, where they were really killing it at doing exactly that, they still sound great. Meanwhile, "Legalize Living" is another anthemic cut that speaks to the same desires for freedom and just doing your own thing like the first track does. Because in a way, this is an album that feels like it's rebelling against something, at least a little bit. Just rejecting rules and boundaries and expectations and inhibitions.

Now, following this, there's an interlude, which is a interesting choice for just such a tight and very all killer, no filler, meat and potatoes garage record. And following this interlude, we hit the song "Roll Out the Red Carpet", which is a very punchy, upbeat rocker that I think is fine. Is it one of the best and strongest songs the band has ever written? No. But if there's anything that's really holding it back, in my opinion, it's this weirdly abrupt transition that comes through at the very the end that brings the song to a very sudden close. It feels almost like a cop-out ending to a degree, I guess you could say.

After this, "Born a Rebel" uses a theatrical energy that maybe some of my least favorite tracks from Lex Hives did from way back when. There's something about HP's vocals on this track, combined with the overly bent guitar leads – I feel like they're trying to carry on the badassery of a really nasty Link Wray song or something like that. I also love some of the subtle surf rock influence coming off the guitars on this track, too. It's just got one of the most infectious, just energetic group choruses on the entire record as well.

"They Can't Hear the Music" is a pretty anthemic one I've been getting a lot out of. Even if it does move at such an aggressive pace, it's a little difficult to savor the song.

Even though after the interlude point on this record I did find the back end to be maybe a little a little choppier, I do love the punchy new wave influences that are flowing throughout the title track that closes the album out.

Look, overall, I did love listening to this album quite a bit, and I feel like this is the best and most consistent body of work the Hives have put out in quite a long time, which is why I'm feeling a strong 7 to a light 8 on this new album.

Anthony Fantano, The Hives, Forever.