THE HIVES, the curators of that perfectly balanced colour scheme, have been away far too long. During their absence, they have not been mucking about, oh no. They are now ready to bring the BLACK & WHITE again, only more so.
THE HIVES BLACK & WHITE ALBUM has everything that you originally loved them for - kicks, riffs, good times - while also being snazzy, new, longer and generally different from everything they did before.
Howlin' Pelle Almqvist: "We promised ourselves when we were 17," he says, "that we'd make 3 half-hour-long records of blistering punk rock, and so we did. This time, we didn't want 12 fast songs. That would've been the 4th time. They work in sets of three, you see, then it's a new period, so we had to come up with a new plan."
THE HIVES first imposed their B&W vision in the late 1990's, touring Sweden (their home nation) and Germany like crazy, until 2001, when they took the world by storm alongside The Strokes and White Stripes. Their first 2 records were collected on a British compilation, called 'Your New Favourite Band', which went not silver, gold or even multi-platinum, but diamond! From it, came the hits 'Supply And Demand', 'Main Offender' and 'Hate To Say I Told You So'.
With 2004's 'Tyrannosaurus Hives', they successfully returned with rockin' brouhaha on hits like 'Walk Idiot Walk', 'Two-Timing Touch & Broken Bones' and 'A Little More For Little You'.
Without knowing it at the time, the first seed of Phase 2 Hives was sewn during the 'Tyrannosaurus...' era, when they met Pharrell Williams - the Numero Uno production dude from the world of hip hop.
Pharrell may come from the state of Virginia, and THE HIVES from Fagersta, Sweden, but when these two giants of modern entertainment came together, the union of their differing talents worked like magic, setting the 'THE BLACK & WHITE ALBUM' on its long and unwavering path towards massiveness.
With the 21st-century disco-fied 'We Rule The World' and the woo-hoo rockin' 'Well, Alright' under their belts, THE HIVES rounded up a batch of demo tracks, and soon hooked up with another producer Jacknife Lee (U2, Editors, R.E.M.), who brought his hi-tech skills to 'Hey Little World' and an early version of 'Tick Tick Boom'.
From there, they zipped over to Oxford, Mississippi, where they spent some weeks carving out the rest of the album with Dennis Herring - another 'man of the moment', whose credits include Elvis Costello, Buddy Guy and Modest Mouse records.
Having vaguely intended, initially, to get away from the sound of adrenalized punky rock, THE HIVES found themselves gravitating back towards righteousness. Pelle: "We were missing the rock riffage. Plus, no-one's doing it now, at all. There's a complete lack of proper, good rock riffin'! It's sorely needed!"
