You Just Have To Love Them
It is easy to come to this band with all the preconceived ideas that you are not going to enjoy their album one iota, but the more you listen to this Swedish punk band there more you get into what they do.
This is one hell of a hyperactive album from a very hyperactive band with the distinct vocals of Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist howling at you from the beginning of the album to the last track. This is 34 minutes of sheer enjoyment.
From the crashing opening of ‘Abra Cadaver’, this is one album that moves easily through all the tracks to the two bonus tracks on the UK version. At times I thought the album was written especially for me with great tracks such as ‘Walk Idiot Walk’ ‘Diabolic Scheme’ and ‘Missing Link’.
But this dapper band really do enjoy what they do and this can be seen with ‘No Pun Intended’ and there is a fantastic guitar sound in ‘Love in Plaster’. This album is very much like one of their suits; very dapper and worth a look.
‘Dead Quote Olympics’ reminded me very much of The Alarm or The Damned, it sound like a classic from yesteryear. This alone is a great track worth listening to time and time again. They have brought some fun back in to the punk genre, and this song is all about that.
I came to this with a preconceived idea of what I thought about The Hives, with my head held in shame that I should judge a band before listening to them. I am a convert, The Hives are on top of their game with this album, go out and buy it.