Hives guitarist Nicholaus Arson recently joked about the band’s new Black and White Album, saying there was only one band in the world who could make a record twice as good as the Beatles’ White Album and Metallica’s Black Album combined.
Pretty funny, huh? It’s even funnier once you hear the record—but, more importantly, was Arson really kidding? Given the Swedish quintet’s irritating tendency toward self-praise, it’s quite likely Arson merely exaggerated the band’s arrogance, not so much for the audience’s benefit as for the amusement of the band at our expense. Even when parodying themselves, it seems The Hives never lose sight of their hype-mongering mission. And it’s a strategy that has paid off, with Spin magazine, for example, bestowing “best live band on the planet” honors on The Hives in 2004.
“They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result,” declares frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist on the new album’s second song, “Try It Again.” Fittingly, when The Hives convened to begin work on what would eventually become The Black and White Album, they set out to radically alter their approach to making records, this time working with an impressive roster of producers—Pharrell Williams, Timbaland and Dennis Herring. But they sound as constrained by their limitations as ever.
Still, the band has a seemingly innate knack for hooks. Songs like “Try It Again” and “Walk Idiot Walk,” from 2004’s Tyrannosaurus Hives, are built on hooks so catchy they’re viral. But, like the proverbial Chinese meal, it leaves you wanting more a little while later. It’s especially disconcerting that the band puts so much calculation into the music while indulging the usual “rock ’n’ roll, yeah!” sloganeering.
“The way that we’ve done it before is that we’ve rehearsed for months and months and months, so that when we actually hit the studio, everything was exactly how we wanted it to sound,” says drummer Chris Dangerous.
But considering that those records were all short, fast and punky (by design, Dangerous explains, of a plan the bandmembers conceived when they were 17 to make three records “the exact same way”), one has to wonder: Why? Why approach their trademark skeletal arrangements and oom-pah beats so scientifically? According to Dangerous, it’s because the songs start out more crowded with parts and it takes time to strip them down.
“The whole idea behind this band is to have everything very simple,” he says. “A lot of times, we’ve noticed that to make those simple songs really good is harder than making longer songs with more parts in them. Because if you only have two parts and they’re very sort of naked, it’s hard to make them sound good.”
This time, to shake things up, The Hives recorded with Williams with very little material prepared ahead of time. “We didn’t know what to expect,” he says. “We just put up some instruments and started playing. It was nothing at all like working with a rock producer. Everything was so new to him. It was tons of fun.”
But it doesn’t sound like fun. Even after shedding the lab coats and taking a more spontaneous approach, The Black and White Album sounds like a concerted exercise in rock music instead of rock music. And it doesn’t rock very much at that. If it’s any indication, The Hives actually complained about producer Herring’s relaxed work ethic and the pace of life in Mississippi, where Herring helmed most of the tracks that would end up on the album.
“We want to work when we’re together,” says Dangerous. “We can’t just kick back for five hours. At times we had to fight with him, because we thought that things were going too slow, and he thought we were too anxious.”
Culturally based or not, compulsive punctuality is not becoming of a rock band. And Dangerous’ thoughts on Mississippi sum up why it’s difficult to really connect with The Hives’ music, as they quite obviously try to force the passion and fire that should come naturally in their genre. To their credit, they’ve managed to avoid AC/DC’s chosen fate of making the same record for an entire career, at least for now. But when Almqvist yelled “Yeah, The Hives—back on the American continent!” on a 2004 Letterman appearance, the band seemed completely wrapped up in its own America-conquering mythology. Yes, the band’s dinner-coat/prep-school uniforms and funny way of moving onstage (choreographed, of course) no doubt make for a worthwhile evening of entertainment, but the short lifespan of its appeal appears to be written right there in black and white.
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