Watch The Hives Play Two Songs at Secret Show to Celebrate New Album

Charismatic Rock & Roll Resurgence of The Hives

To say The Hives have crept back on to the rock & roll radar is both an accurate statement and a paradoxical one. The accuracy of such an assessment in relation to the Swedish quintet is supported by the fact they haven’t released new music since 2007’s The Black and White Album, an album solid by most any other band’s standards but lacking in the  infectious, visceral Ramones-like blasts of 2000’s Veni, Vidi, Vicious and 2004’s Tyrannosaurus Hives. The Black and White Album did many things particularly well, but it also found The Hives trying to ride the rudder of trends, such as collaborations with The Neptunes, a move not totally misguided but regrettable in how it time-stamped the album to 2007.

The promise of those early days as a Hives fan – when you were gut-punched with abundant joy at the thrill of a band sounding so damn close to an early Stones/Stooges fusion and the wonder at how the high never faded no matter how many spins you gave the record – appears to have immaculately returned with The Hives’s new album, Lex Hives, and that brings me to the paradox: The Hives have never done anything stealthily. Fronted by Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist, The Hives are an airtight, rock & roll tsunami built on loud guitars, speed-freak tempos and shameless charisma.

If you have any doubts about The Hives’s mighty resurgence, please enjoy this two-song clip (via Vice Records’ channel, Noisey) from their secret gig at the tiny Webster Hall Studio in NYC on April 26. The clip contains the Lex Hives opener, “Come On,” which fires out of the gate exuberantly and simplistically like foreplay for the breathless, sweaty romp to come.  They follow it up with a particularly infectious version of The Black and White Album’s “Try It Again.”

The Hives are back in top form and at maximum volume.  Lex Hives was released today and is now available at independent record stores, music retailers and iTunes, courtesy of Disques Hives.

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