The Hives
Tyrannosaurus Hives
Release Date: Jul 20, 2004
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative
Record label: Interscope
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Album Review: Tyrannosaurus Hives by The Hives
Great, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 9/10
It's clear that a lot care goes into the Hives' seemingly immediate, fired-up sound: this is a band, after all, that has only released three full-length albums in its 11-year lifespan. While the 2002 collection Your New Favourite Band ended up winning the group many more fans thanks to its fortuitous timing with the garage rock revival craze (and also ended up being the band's most consistent release to date), it didn't do much to disguise the fact that the Hives hadn't released a new album since 2000's Veni Vidi Vicious. Two years later, Tyrannosaurus Hives arrives, and proves that the band isn't just a fossil from the days when everyone (or critics, at least) thought that the Hives and the other bands lumped in with the rock revival were going to change the face of pop music.
Based on rating 3/5
The Hives are such a bracing antidote to all things flatulent and self-important that is tempting to love their major label debut on principle. But of all the Swedes' winning qualities, the music is perhaps the least persuasive. Like the last Strokes album, Tyrannosaurus Hives offers clenched brevity (12 tracks in half an hour) and musical progression so limited that, barring the occasional synthesizer, it is inaudible to the human ear.