THE BLACK AND WHITE ALBUM - THE HIVES
Seven years after breaking out of Sweden’s eternal garage-revival scene, this color-coordinated quintet has somehow created its liveliest, most playable album. Its cartoon-tuneful energy pogos all over the place: an opening volley of blowing stuff up (”Tick Tick Boom”), an expert AC/DC homage about being broke (”Square One Here I Come”), equestrian Pixies new wave (”Giddy Up!”), 1966 frat-rock party voices, Motown basslines under laughs and cackles and yelps. Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist has an awesome knack for turning simple declarative mantras into hooks (”I was right all along,” “I can’t go on and I gotta get goin’,” “Whatcha gonna do? Here he comes for you”). And when tempos occasionally downshift (Eric Burdon’s baritone verses on “Won’t Be Long,” creepy crawly keyboards during “Puppet on a String,” even a robotically falsetto-ed Prince-circa-”Kiss” attempt on the Pharrell-helmed “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.”), the fun still doesn’t drain away.
