The Hives – Lex Hives (Deluxe) (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

The Hives – Lex Hives (Deluxe) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 56:46 minutes | 515 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Disques Hives

The world’s most intelligent musical body, the international rock sensation The Hives, is back. On June 1, 2012, Howlin Pelle Almqvist, Nicholaus Arson, Chris Dangerous, Dr. Matt Destruction and Vigilante Carlstroem will return with Lex Hives, their fifth masterpiece. A 12-number comprehensive consideration of all Hives regularities is Lex Hives. The term Lex Hives is derived from an expression that in Roman antiquity stood for the application of a system ordinance or set of laws and their acceptance as a guideline. That’s why the 12 songs of Lex Hives concoct the sacred laws according to which all life must be lived from now on. Carved into a 33 1/3 melting wax cake longplayer, Lex Hives comes from the Hives own label Disques Hives.
Self-produced, self-recorded, self-published and self-advertised these 12 songs were not only created to please everyone. They are not songs that sound good when they are played with an acoustic around a campfire. This is not music. This is compressed carbon that was stored in the Earth’s crust for millions of years and was waiting for its excavation in order to be able to be at home in your eardrums. The new single Go Right Ahead is now streaming on rollingstone com. Lex Hives was produced by The Hives and mixed by Grammy winner Andrew Scheps (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adele). Two additional mixes are by D. Sardy (Marylin Manson, Slayer) and Joe Zook (Weezer, Modest Mouse). The Lex Hives Deluxe version contains bonus tracks directed by Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme.

Growing louder. More boldly. Proud. And more confident. The Hives have escaped the dark times and are steering towards the light that is the law. The law that The Hives are. Lex Hives . Natural laws look comparatively pale, and The Hives demand no less than perfect obedience.

Five years is a long wait between albums for almost any artist, but especially for a band like the Hives, who seemed to have such a tight grasp on who they are and what they do that they could practically churn out cartoonishly catchy garage punk in their sleep. However, 2007’s The Black and White Album, which found the band expanding its sound and collaborating with Pharrell Williams, among others, was equally inspired and muddled, so it’s not surprising that the Hives took some time to retool following it. It also makes sense that Lex Hives, the band’s first self-released album, is by and large a return to form: the pounding toms that kick off the album’s 66-second opening blast, “Come On!,” lets listeners know that driving snotty melodies home hard is priority number one, a promise the band makes good on with “Go Right Ahead.” The Hives may not be underdogs exactly, but there’s a feeling of something to prove here, as well as undercurrents of vengeance in several of these songs, most notably on the loose ‘n’ shouty “Take Back the Toys,” where Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist snarls “I’ll stick to pebbles and boulders and blocks” with enough venom to make it a classic Hives kiss-off. On the bulk of Lex Hives, the band slyly borrows from the past rather than trying to reinvent its sound. “I Want More” is a hybrid of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” and Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” laced with plenty of the band’s own smart-ass attitude; “Patrolling Days”‘ fiery minor-key assault pledges allegiance to the Ramones; and the new wave sheen on “Wait a Minute” and the strangely optimistic “1000 Answers” sounds more natural here than it did on The Black and White Album. At times, things threaten to become a little too straightforward, but the mix of tracks like the gospel-tinged interlude “Without the Money” and “These Spectacles Reveal the Nostalgics” — perhaps the closest the band has ever come to sounding bittersweet — and typically blistering numbers such as “If I Had a Cent” prevents the album from becoming Hives-by-numbers. All the Hives really need is energy and good songs, and they have enough of both on Lex Hives to bring smiles to their fans’ faces. – Heather Phares

Tracklist:
1-1. The Hives – Come On! (01:08)
1-2. The Hives – Go Right Ahead (03:05)
1-3. The Hives – 1000 Answers (02:07)
1-4. The Hives – I Want More (02:52)
1-5. The Hives – Wait A Minute (03:01)
1-6. The Hives – Patrolling Days (04:00)
1-7. The Hives – Take Back The Toys (02:53)
1-8. The Hives – Without The Money (01:53)
1-9. The Hives – These Spectacles Reveal The Nostalgics (01:56)
1-10. The Hives – My Time Is Coming (02:34)
1-11. The Hives – If I Had A Cent (02:01)
1-12. The Hives – Midnight Shifter (03:36)
1-13. The Hives – High School Shuffle (Bonus Track) (03:02)
1-14. The Hives – Insane (Bonus Track) (02:47)
1-15. The Hives – Come On! (Live At Terminal 5) (01:31)
1-16. The Hives – Take Back The Toys (Live At Terminal 5) (03:24)
1-17. The Hives – 1000 Answers (Live At Terminal 5) (02:20)
1-18. The Hives – Wait A Minute (Live At Terminal 5) (04:07)
1-19. The Hives – Go Right Ahead (Live At Terminal 5) (03:36)
1-20. The Hives – Patrolling Days (Live At Terminal 5) (04:44)

Download: