![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/The-Hives-Q-and-A-May-2012.jpg\" "\\"The-Hives-Q-and-A-May-2012\\"")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nSweden\u2019s super-caffeinated, supremely confident rockers rediscover one another \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Onstage, Hives frontman \u201cHowlin\u2019\u201d Pelle Almqvist has moves like Jagger and the personality of a carnival barker. Comically arrogant, he\u2019s there to tell you how great his band is and how thoroughly you\u2019re about to be rocked. Discussing the group\u2019s latest studio effort, Almqvist is less prone to bold proclamations. He\u2019s plenty confident, but when discussing Lex Hives<\/em>, the Swedish garage-rock outfit\u2019s fifth album and first since 2007, he ditches the mock pomposity of his stage character. \u201cWe don\u2019t think about it that way,\u201d he says. \u201cI guess you could be nervous about people still being into the kind of music we play, but most of the time when we put out a record they like it. When you make a record you\u2019re happy with,\u00a0there\u2019s nothing to fear.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the release of its last full-length, the experimental pop- and hip-hop-influenced Black and White Album<\/em>, the Hives toured relentlessly and suffered what Almqvist has called \u201ca terrible couple of years.\u201d Fortunately, Almqvist says, most of the stressors were external\u2014managers, record labels and the like\u2014and the five members themselves are closer than ever. \u201cThere were times it was difficult, but the one thing we knew was that we weren\u2019t going to break up,\u201d he says. \u201cThe thing about a band is that musicians all think they have something better to do, but 99 percent of the\u00a0time they realize they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Knowing full well that theirs is a pretty sweet job, the Hives went back to doing it. They started at Berlin\u2019s famed Hansa Studios, where they spent a week knocking out tracks. Listening to the results, they decided they didn\u2019t need to bring in any of the big-name producers they worked with last time. Self-recorded and released on the group\u2019s own label, Lex Hives<\/em> is a purposefully fast and lean rock album, if not quite a sequel to Veni Vidi Vicious<\/em>, the raging 2000 collection that broke the band worldwide.<\/p>\n Sprinkled among the propulsive punk cuts are songs like lead single \u201cGo Right Ahead,\u201d an update of Electric Light Orchestra\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Bring Me Down.\u201d It wasn\u2019t the band\u2019s intention to copy the 1979 hit, Almqvist says, but when they realized the similarity the members elected to give ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne a cut of the publishing. \u201cUsually when we start writing a record the material is all over the place,\u201d Almqvist says. \u201cThere are country songs or soul ballads or synth-pop numbers. The more we work at it, the more it starts\u00a0to sound like the Hives.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013Kenneth Partridge<\/p>\n THE HIVES Sweden\u2019s super-caffeinated, supremely confident rockers rediscover one another \u00a0 Onstage, Hives frontman \u201cHowlin\u2019\u201d Pelle Almqvist has moves like Jagger and the personality of a carnival barker. Comically arrogant, he\u2019s there to tell you how great his band is and how thoroughly you\u2019re about to be rocked. Discussing the group\u2019s latest studio effort, Almqvist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[3906,3905,3903,3907,3904,3754,3902,10156,3901],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6635"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6638,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6635\/revisions\/6638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"