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Barely Legal

The Hives - Barely Legal Audio CD

A fair review of the The Hives "Barely Legal" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Hives reviews here, or go back to the The Hives tabs.

Band: The Hives
Title: Barely Legal
Rating:

Release Date: 2001-10-09
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Well, Well, Well 2: A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T 3: Here We Go Again 4: I'm a Wicked One 5: Automatic Schmuck 6: King of Asskissing 7: Hail Hail Spit N'Drool 8: Black Jack 9: What's That Spell?... Go to Hell! 10: Theme From... 11: Uptempo Venomous Poison 12: Oh Lord! When? How? 13: Stomp 14: Closed for the Season

Old-school homages
It is only when the band infuses the methodical rawness with more melodic conviction that any song distinguishes itself from the pack, roughly equaling out to 1/4 of this quick assault. 2 1/2

Powerful only in micro-managed bursts of fuzzed-up, snarling punk, even at less then a half hour the monotonous time signatures begin to take their toll rather quickly. .

Rips you a new one!!!
Its totally a hardcore firestorm(!!!) featuring more jangly sounding guitars not unlike DK!

And, less impressively:

2. When I first popped in the Hives very first album, "Barely Legal," my inital thought was, "Did I buy a Dead Kennedy's album by mistake?"

The reason I thought that was two-fold:

1. The opening riff to "Well, Well, Well" is totally the opening riff to the Dead Kennedys "One-Way Ticket To Pluto. "

I wasn't expecting either, because I was used to the (relatively) more user-friendly, mainstream Hives found on "Veni Vedi Vicious" and "Tyrannosaurus Hives. "

But thats okay, because I likes me some hardcore, and this album just RIPS!!!

Its not all hardcore, though, but its easily the hottest thing the Hives have done.

I mean, only 4 of the songs go over 2 mintues and ALL of them are played faster than ANYTHING on "VVV" or "T-Hives. "

Its just a crazy halfhour punk rock speed fest!

The bad part? Well, because they're much more hardcore on this one, melodies and hooks are generally eschewed in favor of speed, speed, and SPEED!!! Which I'm okay with, generally. Its great fun while it lasts, but don't count on getting too many of these songs stuck in your head or anything.

So while "VVV" is so far the catchiest batch of songs the Hives have done, and "T-Hives" is currently the most diverse Hives album, "Barely Legal" gets the destinct honor of being the Hives album most likely to kill your neighbors and rip your face off.

It kicks, man, just kicks!

p. s. If you LIKE this kind of music (you should, unless you're a wuss), check out Guitar Wolf, they do the crazy garage punk thing quite well also.
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The beginning of all the fun
S. The Hives, while having a moderate success in the U. , are not really known for the first album and only recently got to find out on the "Your New Favorite Band" compilation. Actually, I don't own that one. Because roughly seven months before that was released I was lucky to find this at a mall and in spite being an import it was not really a bad price at all. I wanted to know the roots of the Hives.

Well, basically an even rougher version of what would come later. I enjoy that there's an instrumental in "Stomp" even if that's somewhat like a reprise of the track before it. However, the rest of the album isn't that much different from your typical garage punk. However, that doesn't mean the tracks aren't fun from time to time. Although I don't know if I could listen to this as often as I do their other two, because it's just not as consistent. That doesn't mean that they couldn't arrange songs well at the time though; they could. But it all depends on how much you'd want to buy this. I do not recommend it to the casual fan but if you love them and want to hear the beginning then by all means go for it.

First actually carried them? amazing...

I listened to this as part of appreciating a variety of band's starts, and the Hives really just, I mean. This album must have really signaled to record industries that music was 'shifting', because we fans understood that it was not really, and this album shows that through its weakness to, well, even be good. . . This was thought to be good, or at least good enough for other deals? As I said, I understand that garage band rock was a big focus, with other bands too as The Vines and even Jet a bit, but this leads to success?

Sometimes I have to sit back and remind myself that good comes out of bad, because the band's improved and that's for sure; however, unless you're a Hives fan, or just a music connoisseur like me, then you'll never pick up this album. Simply because there is no point.

Mosh-inspiring garage rock
When listening to it, it's easy to imagine these guys at home in their native Sweden, in the garage, annoying the whole neighborhood with their obnoxiously noisy sound. Although "Barely Legal," the Hives' debut album, is often categorized as punk, it is much better suited to the genre of garage rock.

Despite this, the Hives have created a great album, something difficult to do when playing as hard, as fast, and as loud as humanly possible. It kicks off with "Well, Well, Well," a one-minute romp in which you can picture vocalist Howlin' Pelle Almqvist stomping around and diving into a mosh-pit.

A few of following tracks are more subdued--at least by Hives standards--and allow the band to show off their talents as musicians. Guitarists Nicholaus Arson and Vigilante Carlstroem work quite well together, and their skills are especially evident on "A. K. A. I-D-I-O-T" and "Black Jack. " The commanding punch packed by drummer Chris Dangerous is displayed on "Uptempo Venomous Poison" and "Closed For The Season. " In addition, the songwriting (credited to the fictional Randy Fitzsimmons) shows the Hives' dissent and their penchant for hostility: "Automatic Schmuck" proclaims to the government: "I was born and plated, the schmuck they created. . . I'll explode, I'll erode, yeah I'll break your f---ing code, 'cause I'm an automatic schmuck with a tendency to rock".

There is some truth to the criticism that many of the songs sound the same on this record, but when the music rocks this much, who cares? All you'll care about once you put the CD on is banging your head.
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You can see a complete list of all The Hives discography, or go back to the The Hives tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.