Album Review: The Hives - Lex Hives

Lex Hives purportedly refers to the ancient Roman practice of anointing a body of law as a standard – the liner notes proclaim it to be a 'moral law' – and luckily it's one we can learn to live with. They continue down their long-trodden path of grandiose garage rock, delivered dripping with attitude bordering on arrogance, but never without that all-pervading sense of rock'n'roll fun. There's little of the experimental bent such as the ill-advised beats from 2007's The Black And White Album, this being if anything closer in tone to the fleshed-out stomp of 2004's Tyrannosaurus Hives.

Repetitive, rousing opener Come On! leads straight into the horn-laden ELO pastiche of first single Go Right Ahead, but it's the sneering 1000 Answers that is the first real highlight, the track destined to become a live monster. Wait A Minute transcends its shitty faux-electro opening to become the album highlight and towering frontman Pelle Almqvist's best vocal performance, Without The Money is their standard mid-pace change-up and These Spectacles Reveal The Nostalgics is straight-up punk rock, sounding like the Ramones if they were from Sweden instead of Queens. It doesn't drop off at the tail, My Time Is Coming being sparse '60s garage, If I Had A Cent the searing Hives of yore and closer Midnight Shifter all horns, handclaps and call-and-response hooliganism, even summoning the spectre of The Beach Boys.

We'll never hear the upstart punk of 2000's incredible Veni Vidi Vicious again but that's okay, it's just great to have this awesome band back after a lengthy layoff. If Lex Hives is indeed a moral law then it mightn't constitute a binding precedent, but it's certainly bloody persuasive.