Customer Reviews

Veni Vidi Vicious

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(54)
3 star:		(38)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

to suggest that the hives are a throwback to the proto-punk of detroit is to totally underestimate the degree and reach of their piracy. it's like they've sucked up every crumb of trashy rock since louie louie and regurgitated it on veni vidi vicious, and they stop just shy of quoting their influences from the sonics to blur (yeah, i said blur). graying aficionados of american punk will find themselves in familiar terrain, but then again, grindcore fans who were probably in diapers when the dolls started purveying their junk-style take on glam will recognize the energy (if not the soul). and somewhere in between, the hives were careful to pick at the carcasses of the new york noise bands of the 80's. so if somebody were to say to me that there's not one original thought on this cd, i'd be hard-pressed to find a rebuttal (except to weakly point out that there's not really an original thought on any cd coming out these days).

that doesn't mean i'm not going to go out on a limb and say the hives deserve a place in the pantheon of great RAWK (oy!) based on this album alone though. there's nothing wrong with building on the unique ideas of your forebears, but it does increase the pressure to deliver. imho, they totally deliver. they're tight and cacophonous and obnoxious - everything you'd wanna hear about a rock band. they've hung their talents on memorable, catchy tunes and even the lyrics are kind of smart - in a clipped, snotty punk-... sort of way. there's not a dud in the bunch, including the charming crooner find another girl. highlights are die, all right!, hate to say i told you so, but most of all, main offender. all of 'em brilliant, cathartic, and fun - the sort of butchy summer keg-tunes i like to crank up in my car with the windows all open and howl along to.

if you like trashy rock like this, check out royal trux's accelerator too.

This an amazing album all the way through. It's not like those sellout bands with an album that has one good song. You can listen to all 12 songs without stopping and then want to hear them again. This is a perfect example of a real punk rock record. It resembles bands like the ramones and the sex pistols much more than these new sellout bands like simple plan and good charlotte and yellowcard and bands like that. It is perfect for audiences anywhere from the rebellious kids of the 1970's to the emo kids of the 1990's. It is an amazing album and i reccomend i to everyone.

Five dopey looking dudes from the land of Abba out to save rock and roll? You bet...The Hives have a chainsaw guitar cross-attack that will make your hairs stand on end. Forget about the Strokes and White Stipes, these are the real saviors of rock and roll. Music that makes you want to drink 15 expressos and do something really weird in front of an authority figure. If you buy just one CD for the rest of your life, this is it...your new favorite band!

The Hives, coming from Sweden, could very well be the world's greatest punk band currently running. How? Two notable things:
1)They avoid the pitfalls of current punk rock...there's no nasal, whining vocals (Blink 182/White Stripes), there's no self absorbed, pity me self-rightousness (Good Charlotte/Nickelback) nor political preaching (Int. Noise Conspiracy), avoids insincerity (The Vines) and The Hives totally lack any hip hop influences (Sum 41).
2)They reach back and transcend the influences of the late 70's/early 80's punk. "Transcend" is the key word here. Other than just emulating the styles of the past, the Hives take the styles of Mod, punk and hardcore and make them their own.
Often compared to the Rolling Stones (mostly because of the antics of lead singer Howlin' Pele Almqvist) this really touches base mostly with the early Jam and 1977 sound (Mod has always been and remains cool). "Hate To Say I Told You So" takes off from it's "New Rose" style riff to inflict real danger and menace upon it's listeners ("Gonna do what I please, gonna spread the disease, because I wanna"). The oft-maligned "Find Another Girl" shows diversity in the songwriting and throughout the disc they title songs after themselves in a Jon Spencer self mythological type thing...not a bad idea, afterall, who's cooler than Jon Spencer??
The Hives bring life to a genre that's become increasingly boring in it's sameness simply by being old school punks. They are arrogant, rude, exciting and they don't care about rampant capitalism, broken homes, hip hop, skate culture or whether Mall Rats or MTV like them or not.
Punk's not dead after all Wattie, it's alive and well and living in Sweden.

I'm telling you people, if you like punk (and I mean REAL punk, none of this Blink-182ish garbage) than this is an album that you simply have to own. The Hives perform a very old-school style of punk. Loud, fast and raw! These guys are definetely the pride of their homeland Sweden (and that country really needs some pride after they gave us ABBA [ewwww!]).

Almost every track on this album is quality, but usually under two minutes. It's not a very long album (clocking in at around 28 minutes), but you will enjoy most of it.

A few of the stand-outs on this album would (of course) be the first single, "Hate to say I told you so". The cathcy rhyme of the verse and the rapid fire outro definetly portray singer Pelle Almqvist talent as a singer (even if he does tend to squeak more than a mouse being beaten by a squirrel).
Another would be the fourth track, "Main Offender". Hopefullly this will be thier next single. Like "Hate to say I told you so", "Main offender" is just a bit slower than the rest of the album, but considering the rest of the tracks, that isn't very slow at all! The guitar work is very fluid with the vocals, and Pelle Almqvist vocal talent still shines, but also STILL squeaks
more than a chipmunk ging thru puberty!

Other stand-outs include the VERY slightly industrial feel of "Supply and Demand". The lightning fast "Metric System in Time", and the very mosh-worthy "Die, Alright". But thier is one big flaw in Veni Vidi Vicious. It's a song called "Find Another Girl". What were there guys smoking when they wrotte this song. It's a doo-wop, cornball song about falling in love and getting your heart broken. It sounds like a Buddy Holly track played on Telecasters. This album would be perfect if not for this single...basket of a track.

Veni Vidi Vicious does have flaws (*cough* findanothergirl *cough*), but what album doesn't. I would recommend this album to anyone. Go buy this album, I ASSURE you, you won't regret it!

Until next time,
Hip Hip Hooray! Nice, Nice! Yah-Boo! ...

Is it just me or is the music scene undergoing a Ed Keupper revisionist phase in 2000? The Dandy Warhols sound like the Laughing Clowns or EK & the Yard goes on forever.
And now the Hives. They must've been to every gig The Saints threw in the Scandinavian reaches.

Ahhhhhh. The Saints at their peak were electric and the Hives capture that. It's Punk at the DIY and do it loud end of the spectrum. It's the same energy and youthful "work" ethic that '50's rock and roll was all about. It all takes me back to 77 when I heard (I'm)Stranded for the first time. CMON! AWLRIGHT! Or spotted The Stooges "Raw Power" album cover in my mates older brothers record collection. If it can take a sad old man like me back to his youth imagine ehat it could do for you!

The albums short and so it should be. So are all the Ramones songs. You should only travel at 10 tenths for small bursts. This really is a spot the infulence CD. You can hear and see The Damned in the film clips, see new wave in the dress sensibilities. Bits of the MC-5's, the Stones, the Buzzcocks etc etc in the sound (Can't hear the Beatles though as claimed by other reviewers).

There is only so many chords, so many killer riffs and things people want to sing about.

It's only rock and roll but I like it.

After watching the video for "Hate To Say I Told You So" on MTV2 and MuchMusic (if you happen to live in Canada), I knew I had to buy the CD. And the CD doesn't disappoint one bit! Sure there are obvious influences of 60's three-chord guitar pop mixed with the brashness of late 70's punk! All the songs are two to three minutes long which is why the whole album clocks in at just about a half-hour. Still, that's more than enough to satify this new fan. I've played it quite a few times already! Howlin' Pelle Almqvist (the main vocalist) and his four other cohorts take it to the max and then some! Almqvist belts out the lyrics like there's no tomorrow while the remaining four play with a focus and passion like no other! If you like The Strokes or The White Stripes, then this band is for you. In my humble opinion, The Hives play more passionately than the two aforementioned bands! (don't get me wrong, both of them are still good). A great CD to add to your collection!

BTW, this is an enhanced CD which contains the videos for "Die, All Right!", "Main Offender", and of course, "Hate To Say I Told You So".

I've listened to the CD a few times now and like it more and more. I absolutely do not regret buying this CD. But beware, if you like your rock "without the edge" then this CD is not for you. It's racous, in your face and has attitude. Melodic it's not. Garage rock seems like a pretty good description.
Personally, I find the White Stripes (referred to in another review) too tame and more commercially oriented. I guess that's the difference here.

Here it is, two years since the American release of this album, and I've just gotten around to listening to it. Why? Because I had a hard time believing that "Veni Vidi Vicious" could justify its hype. Well, this release proved me wrong. At a tight and concise 28 minutes, this fantastic release bursts with playful, brash energy. It's wholly unoriginal, but they make up for that with the skill they use to play these tracks of crisp, amped-up punk. "Outsmarted" and "Hate to Say I told You So" are explosively great and are solid enough to win over just about any cynic, while "Statecontrol" and "Die All Right!" rock with fury. Sure, I'm two years behind in discovering this CD, but it's never too late to experience a record as fine as this. The grooves on "Veni Vidi Vicious" are as catchy and as infectious as a case of, well, the hives.

I felt compelled to write a brief review of this album based on some other reviews I read here at Amazon. To start off, if someone is going to judge an album for it's length, then I think they have NO merit whatsoever. I'd rather have a strong & tight 30 minutes of great music versus some long 2 disc set of GARBAGE. Not to mention successful punk rock bands of the past like The Ramones also had short song lengths.

Are they original? No. Has it been done before? Yes. Should we care? NO! I don't understand why people poke at artists for stealing ideas, when that's really all the entertainment world is FILLED with. Come on, everything has been pretty much done, and those things that work are worth revisiting. Look at the motion picture industry. How many of the blockbuster films are rehashed material? Retro sells. And personally I find the return refreshing. If the Beatles were great, they can't entertain youth on stage today, so why not bring them back? Look at the Squirrel Nut Zippers for example. They write in a style of a completely different time period, but they expose a new crowd to a sound that once worked. I think most people that are complaining about "they sound like The Rolling Stones" or what have you, are just bitter because they have a personal attachment to something from their youth, and feel like they are being cheated, or they're jealous that today's youth is giving credit to the "new sound". Personally when I first saw The Hives' music video for "Hate to say I told you so" I noticed the white ties tucked in and thought, "wow," Duran Duran did that in the early 80s. Cool. Then I was hooked instantly by the catchy riffs and high energy. I also enjoyed the fact that all the band members aren't some corporate creation of pretty pop boys, but rather they are an odd mix of sizes and heights.

But enough of that, how about the music? If you've heard ANY of their singles, then you can expect MORE of the same on the album. And I mean that in a GOOD way. High energy, catchy, and fun. Lead vocalist Pelle Almqvist is not the greatest singer in the world, but I think that's part of the appeal. It's like the neighborhood rock band jamming in their garage; edgy, playful, and promising. If you're debating if the album is worth your money, it IS. Especially the enhanced version which contains 3 spectacular music videos on it ("Hate To Say I Told You So," "Die All Right!," and "Main Offender") gives you great bang for the buck, as The Hives have a strong image presence. A great surprise track is track 8 "Find another girl," which contains the swooning percussion and sound of a 1950s song. Sweden has won me over again.