ARTIST: The Hives

TITLE:  Veni Vidi Vicious

YEAR RELEASED: 2000

CHART ACTION: #63

SINGLES: Hate to Say I Told You So (#35 US Mainstream, #23 UK), Main Offender (#24 UK), Supply and Demand, Die All Right! (#133 UK)

OTHER SONGS YOU MAY KNOW:  None unless you heard college radio back in 2001 or so.

LINEUP: Pelle Almqvist, Niklas Almqvist, Mikael Karlsson, Mattias Bernwall, Christian Gran (their real names)

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT: Raucous garage-rock revivalist make a really fun record that almost goes out of control, and that’s a little to its detriment.

SOME WORDS, PHRASES AND CLAUSES ABOUT THIS RECORD: Rock-an-roll is supposed to live on the edge – a high wire act between order and chaos. The Hives go for chaos, and they’re a heck of a lot of fun on stage and in small bites.

Over a whole album, though, especially this one, I feel they may be a bit TOO out of control. “Hate to Say I Told You So” works so well because there’s some normalcy in the chaos. But Pelle Almqvist’s vocals on many other songs get a bit TOO manic, and the band follows right in there with him.

This is a great album for the catalog, though, because you need some chaotic danger in there. It just gets weary at times.

NOTES & MINUTIAE: They released an album and some EPs in their native Sweden before unleashing this everywhere.

IS THERE A DELUXE VERSION: No.

GRADE: B:  Sometimes it’s too crazy, but there’s good rock-and-roll here.