FUSE TV - Listen Now: The Hives Are Back!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS: Sweden's sharply-dressed garage rock revivalists The Hives have returned! Viva Le Hives!

The quintet just announced details for their fifth album and first release in five years, Lex Hives, which drops stateside on June 5. Even better, the band are streaming the LP's first single, "Go Right Ahead," over at Rolling Stone. It's quintessential Hives: explosive changes, grit-nasty riffs, simple-snappy drum beats and, of course, frontman Howlin' Pelle Almqvist's Mick Jagger-inspired sass. Also, it sounds a lot like ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down," and that's a good thing.

So, about this new album. The name Lex Hives is taken from an ancient Roman practice of enacting a system or body of laws and accepting them as a standard. So, as a statement explains, "the 12 songs on Lex Hives make up the holy laws after which all life from now on must be lived." Typical tounge-in-cheek Hives hilarity.

The LP was self-produced and will be self-released on the band's Disques Hives label. It was mixed, however, by a few notable names in the music business, including Grammy Award winner Andrew Scheps (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adele), D. Sardy (Marilyn Manson, Slayer) and Joe Zook (Weezer, Modest Mouse). The deluxe version of Lex Hives will feature bonus tracks produced by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme.

"These are not songs that sound equally good played on an acoustic guitar by the campfire," the band say in a statement. "This is not music. This is compressed carbon hidden in the earth's crust for millions of years and unearthed, to be placed in your eardrums." 

Sort of like eardrum dynamite, eh? I believe 'em. Why? Because they've produced songs like this: 

The Hives, "Walk Idiot Walk"