Hives ~ Veni Vidi Vicious

American punk rock seems to get more watered down with each passing year. Leave it to the Swedes to remind the USA that we were once the home of the Stooges and the MC5. The Hives' Veni Vidi Vicious owes its very being to Detroit's punk genesis; they may be decades too late, but the Hives capture the zeal and fury perfectly. "Die, All Right," an angry rant against capitalism, spikes the aural brew with frontman Howlin' Pelle Almqvist's nasty nasal shouts. Just as rocking is "Hate to Say I Told You So," which boasts a clunky punk groove and delightfully dark lyrics such as "Do what I please gonna spread the disease because I wanna / Gonna call all the shots for the no's and the not's." Veni Vidi Vicious clocks in at just under half an hour--a perfectly timed charge of codeine-meets-caffeine and decibels-meets-delicious-rock.

1 The Hives - Declare Guerre Nucleaire

2Die, All Right!

2 Die, All Right!r to Tear It Apart

4 Main Offender

5 Outsmarted

6 Hate to Say I Told You So

7 The Hives-Introduce the Metric System in Time

8 Find Another Girl

9 Statecontrol

10 Inspection Wise 1999

11 Knock Knock

12 Supply and Demand