Veni Vidi Vicious - Hives (The) > Reviews > Rubbish,Rotten, Repulsive

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Standard
Quality and consistency of tracks	Mixed
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Average
Value for Money	Poor

Advantages:	A few decent songs
Disadvantages:	over half of it is crap,vocals

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Once upon a time, I was very into the whole Punk Scene, by that I refer to what is currently known as the punk scene, ala all those bands on Epitaph records and such, NOFX,Pennywise...you know the type. Im not now, but I can still look back on some CDs purchased during this time, and semi-relate to what I was enjoying in them. One such CD I cannot is this.

Because Im Mr.Finger On the Pulse (not really), I was actually alerted to Sweden's The Hives a good year or so before they became famous, and also grew to dislike them before they became famous. Don't like the Hives? My bandwagon you are jumping on. Ok, so Im sure others hated them first, but I deserve honourable mention, because I liked them for a bit before seeing the light.

My first encounter with the Hives came on a VHS tape I found retailling for about 2 quid, named Punxploitation. It was basically a video compilation of the promo's for various band's on Epitaph records. I bought it basically because there was a Dwarves video, for the song Over You on it, and Pennywise were on there too. This tape lead me to buying two albums, one was this, the other I'll reveal if I ever get around to reviewing it. Anyway, the introduction came just after 'Over You' finished. The next video, featured an odd looking bunch of fellows with a squeling singer all wearing matching suits and playing gold guitars while trying to look cool or menacing or something along those lines.The song was catchy as all hell, and while I hated it at first, as the days went on, I couldn't remove it from my head, so almost conceding defeat, I purchased two of those Punk Sampler CDs that cost pennies, Cheap Shots 3 and 5, to hear two more songs by this band. The songs by this band on each of these CDs varied in quality from 'OK', to 'Pretty Good', so in my next trip to the city, I purchased the band's then current album. This band was of course The Hives, and the album was this,Veni,Vidi, Vicious.

Hailing from Sweden,the birthplace of the band that would later become Punk Legends in the 70s, The Stranglers, The Hives are an unashamed manufactured band, created by somebody called Randy Fitzsimmons. It's debated if he actually exists, or if this is some sort of concocted back story, and to be frank, I don't really care. What is fact, is that the band comprises of 5 Members, who appear under what's clearly, or at least probably, stage names. On vocals we have 'Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, playing guitars we have Vigilante Carlstroem and Nicholaus Arson, bass player Dr.Matt Destruction and drummer Chris Dangerous. They always wear matching snazzy black and white outfits, and are known for their cocky attitude, an attitude that in rock can at times be appealling and cool, and at others just annoying, something the Hives do far more than the former.

In 1997, the band released their debut album, Barely Legal, I've only ever heard one song from this album, and while the song was quite good, Im willing to bet it is probably even worse than this album. This bomb dropped in 2000, and the band were looking set to be stuck in the punk scene playing stuff like the Warped Tour and things like that until their careers ended, until a stroke of luck hit them. The band's sound was really less like NOFX and such, and more like this new trend that was emerging, dubbed Garage Revivial. This was spotted by genius/tosser Alan McGee, the man behind Oasis, who commisioned a compilation of the band's work up until that point, and released a UK only CD dubbed Your New Favourite Band. This 'album' brought them mainstream recognition upon it's release in 2002, which also coincided with the release of McGee's other Garage Revival act, the Libertines, debut record. Several singles from V,V,V were released to coincide with this popularity, and the band finally released a follow up in 2004, Tyranosaurus Hives, which I haven't heard, and don't intend to.

First of all, an admission to make, not only did I used to like the band, but at one point I had a ticket to see them live. It cost a fiver, and through some sort of divine intervention I didn't end up going anyway, but that's how much the first few songs I heard from this band had of an impact on me.

The album actually kicks off in a not too bad manner. The Hives Declare Guerre Nucleaire is a shouty, punky and generally loud way to kick off, with Almqvist declaring what he believes will transpire in the coming years. It gets old very quickly, but the band have the sense to cut it off short as to not outstay it's welcome.

Second up is the song that actually sold me the record, from that video Die,All Right!, a catchy, lightning paced little rocker that begins with a little drum intro, but is quick to burst into life with it's dancy and mind infiltrating guitar riff, this is definitely the band's best work in my ears. Almqvist's irritating voice is actually used wonderfully here, and he even gets some backing vocal support from the rest of his cronies at the chorus.

Immediately after the high of that, we take to the low of what will become a monotonous theme for the rest of the record, A Get Together To Tear It Apart, is dull, generic garage punk dross not at all helped by Almqvist's ear-grating voice which sounds like someone skinning a cat. The same applies to the songs The Hives - Introduce The Metric System In Time,Statecontrol,Inspection Wise 1999 and Knock Knock, not to mention Outsmarted,and Supply And Demand,which also fall under this heading.

Tats half of the album, complete dross. While this may seem like a really lazy way of writing a short album review, it basically is all that can be said about these songs. They don't inspire me enough to even consider them 'ok', they are just nonsense. Why you would record an album consisting of such garbage, when you can clearly compose decent songs is beyond me. The fact that there are a few good songs on the record highlights this.

The songs I would go as far to class as being 'somewhat good' are the aforementioned two openers, as well as single Hate To Say I Told You So, which was awesome the first 100 times I heard it's repeating guitar riffs and swaggering nature. It's one of the only occasion's the band's ego actually appears cool and nothing more than swagger, rather than making them look like pompous berks as usual. This song would have been good, had it not become horrible in terms of overplay on radio and music TV, before being farmed out to the Spiderman soundtrack.

The other popular single, Main Offender is another enjoyable, if less than spectacular slice of retro-fun, with it's dirty riff and memorable chorus. These were clear choices for singles, given that they stand out above the majority of the album.
Find Another Girl, with it's calypso drums and laid back, almost reggae feel may not be very good, but it does at least earn some points for sounding different to the rest of the album.

On the whole, this has to be one of the biggest wastes of time ever released as an album. 4, maybe 5 songs that I would say are ok, produced by a pomous group of dressed up prats from Sweden, who think that by believing they are the best band in the world, the will actually become it. McGee obviously has this effect on people, given that's been Oasis' gimmick for at least the better half of a decade now. Don't touch Veni,Vidi Vicious, there are so many better punk, and so many better garage revival albums out there waiting to be bought, while this, along with their other records, deserves to sit festering on the shelves, for having the sheer audacity to consist of a couple of decent songs surrounded by dull,repetitive crap sung by an idiot who thinks he is some sort of icon.

At the end of the day, the record gets two stars instead of one basically on the grounds that it does have that short selection of tracks that at least qualify as decent, and because Im in a fairly good mood today. There was never any hope in hell of it getting a recommended, or of it ever recieiving a spin in my CD player after I listened to it a few more times for the purpose of this review.

Track Listing
1.The Hives Declare Guerre Nucleaire
2. Die, All Right!
3.A Get Together To Tear It Apart
4.Main Offender
5.Outsmarted
6.Hate To Say I Told You So
7.The Hives - Introduce The Metric System In Time
8.Find Another Girl
9.Statecontrol
10.Inspection Wise 1999
11.Knock Knock
12.Supply And Demand