The HivesThe Black and White Album | A+M/Octone  November 19,
2007 2:04:47 PM
|
Call me crazy, but I consider Tyrannosaurus Hives — the Hives’ 2004 follow-up to their breakthrough album, Veni Vidi Vicious — to be one of the best punk-rock albums of all time, right up there with The Ramones, The Clash, Never Mind the Bollocks. . . , and Dookie. It’s a concise, smart, funny, ferocious album recorded by five childhood chums at the height of their powers, no matter what Jimmy Iovine tells you. Well, you can file The Black and White Album under “disappointment.” With a few notable exceptions (“Square One Here I Come,” “Bigger Hole To Fill”), the band’s apparent desperation to invent the best rock riffs you’ve ever heard — the main reason VVV and T. Hives were so addictive — has been replaced by a desperation to write songs that sound good in sneaker commercials and extreme-skiing movies. Couple those relatively rote exercises in get-pumped anthem making with tepid forays into disco (the Pharrell Williams–produced “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.,” “Giddy Up”) and filler material — at 45 minutes, Black and White is a quarter of an hour longer than each of its predecessors — and you’ve got one bummer of a follow-up.
|
 |
Vote now in over 100 categories including the best local restaurants, comedian, filmmaker, performance artist, and yoga studio
Vote now in over 100 categories including the best local jukebox, bartender, dance club, and tattoo shop
Vote now in over 100 categories including best beer selection, bike route, gallery, and movie house
|
- Fans are paying the price for the Sox success: inside the Fenway fiasco
- Meet Adam Gaffin, Boston’s reigning Web czar
- The first political leader of my generation acts nothing like the rest of us — which might be how he’s gotten where he is
- Never mind its tough-girl alt-porn feminism: SuicideGirls has already moved on to a new generation
- Plus, this week in tedious headlines
- The Clean House at New Rep; Gary at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
- Will his handpicked trustees let him?
- 'Mo momos
- Fans are paying the price for the Sox success: inside the Fenway fiasco
- A dozen local filmmakers weave a musical, a serial-killer parody, and 10 other short movies into a cinematic patchwork quilt
- Teatro Lirico I at the Majestic Theatre, March 2, 2008
- Meet Adam Gaffin, Boston’s reigning Web czar
|
-
The rapid rise of Pretty & Nice
-
Sort of crap
-
Reality TV has not killed the video star
-
Blonde Redhead at Paradise Rock Club, January 20, 2008
-
Mighty Mighty Bosstones at Middle East Downstairs, December 26, 2007
-
A whole new year of live music
-
Ten from Boston’s 2007 pop underground
-
"Miracle on Tremont Street," Orpheum Theatre, December 4, 2007
-
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Middle East Downstairs, November 9, 2007
|
- ATO
- Autumn Fallin' | Blue Note
- Words of Love | LML Music
- Sanders' Truckstop | Collector's Choice
- Black Habit | Paw Tracks
- Have a Good Look | Yep Roc
- Samuel James returns with Songs Famed for Sorrow and Joy
- Watch the Sky | Vanguard
- The Music of the Three Musketeers | Xauen
- Absolute Value | Fat Beats
|
|