Alright, anyone whose been paying even the slightest bit of attention to popular music in the last couple of years will by now be familiar with the phenomena that has come to be known as The Hives. Fronted by charismatic Howlin’ Pelle and his crew of fashionable small-town Swedish mystiques, the band made their break-through with the vastly popular “Veni Vidi Vicious” in 2000, a good overall rock record by almost all standards, and enjoyable despite the overwhelming success following some serious touting by the British mainstream music press.

Of course much anticipation for their third full-length release began to build up amongst their rapidly expanding fanbase following “Veni…”. Europe and America buzzed with The Hives, and still years passed with no new material. A “greatest hits” collection was thrown together, and the inevitable rumours of a break-up circulated. I began to miss the rowdy rockers. Had the success gone to their heads? Judging by the long-awaited arrival of “Tyrannosaurus Hives”, the answer to that question must be a firm ‘no’. The Hives still have some of their old tricks in place, and a few new ones too, for example changing their style of clothing from the familiar black-shirt-white-tie Hives “uniform”. Because even though “Tyrannosaurus Hives” lacks some of the freshness found in the overwhelmingly catchy line-up of songs from “Veni…”, it’s still a tastefully raucuous garage punk record proving that The Hives have much energy and potency in their aging bones - “Tyrannosaurus Hives” is well worth the attention of listeners.

Year Released: 2004
Label: Interscope
Related Link: The Hives Official Website
Date Reviewed: 2004-09-11
Author: Andreas