The Hives

Veni Vidi Vicious (2000)

Average

Expect to hear the words "amazing", "fantastic" and "great" a lot in this review because this album is amazing…and I mean amazing. Every song is  just as fantastic as the last one. For those who are unfamiliar, the hives are a Swedish garage punk band. Their influences include punk bands such as dead kennedys, the stooges, new bomb turks and the misfits. One thing that is very similar the new bomb turks and the hives (on this album) that they have a garage punk sound and are both  very fun, musical and have similarly raw production. If you are into the new bomb turks you may especially enjoy the track "Outsmarted" which is a fast paced song that goes through stops, starts and dynamic changes and is incredibly exhilarating.The vocals on this album chaotic but are well done. The drums experience many complex fills and beats demonstrated on the songs like "Die, All Right!" and "The Hives-Introduce the Metric System in Time". "The Hives-Introduce the Metric System in Time" has a great groove during the verse also. The track "Main Offender" has a great chord progression, guitar riffs are also fantastic on songs like "Statecontrol" and "Inspection Wise 1999" and appear on many other places on this album. The most mellow song on the album is "Find Another Girl" which is  a  pretty nice song. It also contributes to making introduction to "Statecontrol" being even more awesome because after being chill for a little while the song hypes you with another fantastic riff. "Statecontrol" has a great structure to is also. "Main Offender" is one of the more popular songs off this record which is understandable because of how much fun that song is. The vocals use effects that work very nicely to this track in particular. Another hit from this record is "Hate to Say I Told you So" which is a catchy garage punk masterpiece that features a bass solo by Dr. Matt Destruction. The production on this album is great, the pacing is great, the performances are absolutely fantastic and the songwriting is amazing. Their later records are different but also great too. This record is just so full of energy and excitement.