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Review from NME in the early days of the Hives.
The Hives Your New Favourite Band
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
NME
Clearly, the odds on The Hives reducing the rock firmament to a ground-zero style rubble remain about as good as those on catching Lee Bowyer at an Asian Dub Foundation gig, but you gotta admit, they sure know how to retrogress.
Much like their Swedish descendants The Creeps (whose late-'80s classic 'Enjoy The...' is a must have for happenin' Hive-heads) The Hives rip up the 6T'S garage songbook with a loving joy which never allows them to see the serious side of the entire caper. This, of course, is where Alan McGee, the shrewdest of pop recyclists, comes in. Yet for all the current media bluster, comparisons with the Strokes, the Vines and the erm, White Stripes are erroneous. The Hives are pure pastiche.
Normally, the demand for such modern day retroid pleasures is catered for by the splendid and devotional Detour label, who could happily dig up a bunch of Argentinian seventeen year olds obsessed with The Pretty Things if you wanted them to, but occasionally one such beat-pack breaks cover and, encouraged by a bewildered mainstream media, makes a desperate dash for the zeitgeist.
Self-sonsciousness is not an issue. From the off, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist leads his troops through a sepia-drenched garage minefield with an admirable zeal. 'Do what I please/gonna spread the disease!' he barks on an opening 'Hate To Say I Told You So', and he gets ever more worked-up until a splenetic 'Hail Hail Spit' N 'Drool' which could rival anything in the Ramones back catalogue for numbskull intent. By the final instrumental 'The Hives Are Law, You Are Crime', you get the impression Pelle has been stretchered off to the nearest field hospital, mind scrambled by detonating Troggs riffs.
Consequently, if you're the sort of person who is unable to name a single flower or tree you pass-by in your daily life but could recite the evolving line-up of the Chocolate Watch Band from memory, take note. Dust off your winklepickers. Put on your cravat. There's an album to buy. 6/10
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