// Take a stroll through Hive Manor corridors and bask in Swedish royalty – The Hives are back again.
Sixteen years since their last, the public records of The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons brought about a whole new era for a band who were very much dead and buried.
Now, we see our favourite Swedes bring in another project set for world domination. This new record aptly titled, The Hives Forever, Forever The Hives, will surely see this diabolical quintet be incited into the Hall of Fame among rock’s best.
Marking their seventh studio LP – since the bands’ formation in ’93’s steel-industry town Fagersta – The Hives Forever, Forever The Hives is a further commitment to their rip-roaring rock ‘n’ roll energy that has been shaking the worlds’ best venue foundations for decades.
With aim in sights for a right blockbuster larger-than-life rock arena album – Rolling Stones eat your heart out – it clocks in a classic Hives numeration. We’re whizzed through exasperated Enough is Enough, anthemic thunder-ball Paint a Picture, spacious and funky-layered remark of Legalise Living brings in something afresh while the rapturous self-titled is a heavy-duty wall of frenetic guitars, so loud we can barely hear ourselves think – just how we like it.
Elsewhere, Hooray Hooray Hooray gleans over a well-known Police lick while Roll Out the Red Carpet plays homage to The Stooges with another beguiling number, equally fast and true in style. While it doesn’t live up to Randy Fitzsimmons, it’s exclusively hyper-aware that they’re still geared up and ready to go hundred miles an hour.
But everyone and their mothers know that the true Hives experience is not through a recording. No, it’s witnessing them live. After all, they’re not just called the best band in the world for nothing…
Two years ago we last saw them in the flesh, and now on the Friday, we were officially back. In true Hives fashion, the band waded in the new era with a performance to remember at Rock City as they kicked off their Album Launch tour on Friday. A quick 8-song adrenaline shot setlist, the five-piece rattled through old and new, finishing it off with a live debut of the albums’ title track before rounding out with a blitz of an encore with minute-long Come On! and Countdown to Shutdown – a firm favourite from their project prior.
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