Rock 'n' roll gets back to basics

Rock ‘n’ roll, real rock ‘n’ roll — loud wild rhythmic music, ultimately derived from the holy pairing of black blues and white C&W in the '50s, with dancing and screaming and guitars and strippers and human sacrifice … oh wait, I’m getting off track — is on about its fifth resurrection. The first sprang forth in dark clubs and lonely garages from Liverpool, England, to Hawthorne, Calif., less than a decade after the music’s original invention, and the most famous revival centered around the punk revolution of the ‘70s.

We are in the middle of yet another rock ‘n’ roll resurgence: simple (but not simplistic) music stripped down to the elemental essentials of guitar, bass, drums, vocals and attitude (the White Stripes have even stripped out the bass); bands with short, slightly anachronistic names like the White Stripes, the Strokes and the Hives.

The Hives are the dark horse that may end up at the head of the pack. Some bands want to be the cure, others the disease — the Hives very specifically chose the latter when they formed, barely in their teens, 11 years ago in remote Fagersta, Sweden. The band’s fairy tale rise from the sylvan hinterlands of Scandinavia to international dominance should be entering the completion phase with Tuesday’s release of their third album, “Tyrannosaurus Hives,” an ebullient neo-retro rock ‘n’ roll hyper-drive triumph, and a whirlwind tour of North America, Japan, and Europe to support it.

“We wanted to be really annoying punks and we thought a disease name would fit that,” says Hives rhythm guitarist Mike “Vigilante” Carlstroem, speaking brightly of their formative days in excellent if heavily accented English. The lilting, musical accent is momentarily disorienting: like talking punk rock with the Swedish Chef.

“We didn’t really know what ‘hives’ meant,” continues Carlstroem, “other than some kind of rash.” But the fledgling band — Carlstroem, bassist Matt Destruction, drummer Chris Dangerous, lead guitarist Nicholaus Arson (Almqvist) and his brother, singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist — very much liked the idea of being itchy, irritating and forcing a reaction, which they most certainly did, playing fast short aggressive songs in an era of meandering self-pitying grunge, dressing uniformly in sharp black and white suits when slacker sloppy was the fashion.

A vision and a plan
Although the reaction achieved was often hostile, the intrepid young rockers had a vision and a plan, and led by the invisible guiding hand of one “Randy Fitzsimmons” (the band’s quite possibly mythical songwriter, guru and sixth member), the crowds at their shows grew from 20 to 200 and eventually beyond when their second (and breakthrough) album “Veni Vidi Vicious” spread like a skin condition across Europe, the U.K., and finally America between 2000 and 2002.

After taking a breather from nearly incessant touring to recoup, record and recreate (Carlstroem has a two-month old son), the Hives are back — the new record is preceded by a very heavy and well deserved buzz.

“Tyranosaurus Hives” continues in the same general vein of rocket-powered garage rock the band worked to exemplary effect on “Veni Vidi Vicious,” but this time the retro-riffs are mined from a broader base than early-‘70s Stooges, NY Dolls, and Dr. Feelgood. This time the Hives went after the “machine-like precision of Devo and Kraftwerk,” according to Carlstroem, which may sound oxymoronic from a quintet of garage punks until one hears the thrilling result.

“Abra Cadaver” does indeed launch with a drum machine-like rat-a-tat-tat, and rush forward with machine-age momentum and intensity on a churning repeating riff in conjunction with Howlin’ Pelle’s maniacal, processed vocals (a la the Strokes) about a body-snatcher nightmare:

“Oh yeah they needed me, yeah I was the target see
They tried to stick a dead body inside me
Need no, need no alibi
Honestly I tell no lies
Wanted to stick an office worker inside of me”

Human-powered music
The entire tune gleams as one in the sun: this isn’t music played by machines, it is music played by humans with a unity of purpose that transforms them into a rocket sled of rock ‘n’ roll.

The tempo, but not the energy, slows slightly on “Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones,” which, rather than plunging headlong, ingeniously emphasizes the backbeat creating a back-and-forth feel while still remaining on a linear track. The band chants the title in unison, an incantation of ambiguous warning that rises to an abrupt final threat.

The guitars of Arson and Carlstroem split a great mid-tempo riff apart to complementary high and low components on the album’s lead single and first video, “Walk Idiot Walk,” in which Pelle wails, at his most Iggy-like, concerns of social engineering, group think, and voting robots over an infectious jungle beat.

“A Little More For Little You” goes all the way back to the psychedelic ‘60s for its inspiration, putting all the rhythmic weight on the offbeats in the verses, then reversing the beat for the choruses. All the while Pelle wails at the very farthest reaches of his upper register, sounding best while singing worst in the truest rock ‘n’ roll tradition.

Kevork Djansezian / AP file Jack White, right, and Meg White of the White Stripes play a strange blend of proto-punk, psychedelic rock and electric blues, all infused with a Wagnerian romanticism.

“See Through Head” and “Missing Link” positively quiver with punk intensity, while “Diabolic Scheme” lurches to and fro on disjointed strings, an unhinged “ballad” that marries the vocal histrionics of Nick Cave with the Crazy World of Arthur Brown before springing a sprocket and dying of entropy. “Love In Plaster” derives from early-‘80 new wave, with requisite angular guitar lines and random bleats and blurts. “Dead Quote Olympics” is both spectacularly clever in its exhortations to think for yourself (“Yes they were smart but they are dead/And you’re repeating all that they said”), AND totally rocking.

And then it’s over: 12 songs in just over 30 minutes. But wow — in this case less is more. I can’t wait to see the band tearing through these new tunes live, slick suits matching, Pelle contorting and howling, the band flailing, humans playing music as a single machine.

Candy Stripes
The Detroit duo of singer, songwriter, guitarist Jack White, and drummer Meg White, a divorced couple musically known as the White Stripes, is the most basic, stylized (lurid red and white candy motif) and most successful of the lot thus far, playing a strange blend of proto-punk, psychedelic rock and electric blues, all infused with a Wagnerian romanticism. Their fourth and most recent album “Elephant” went double-platinum, won the 2003 Grammy for Best Alternative Album, and Best Rock Single Grammy for “Seven Nation Army.” Jack White also acted in, and contributed songs to the Civil War film “Cold Mountain,” and produced Loretta Lynn’s latest album “Van Lear Rose.”

Bold Stroke and sophomore jinx
The Strokes — guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr., singer/songwriter Julian Casablancas, bassist Nikolai Fraiture, drummer Fab Moretti — arty private school brats barely in their 20s, roared out of NYC in 2001 recapitulating the black leather Village cool, rock ‘n’ roll majesty and edgy melodicism of the Velvet Underground on their timeless first album “Is This It.” With gems like the anthemic “The Modern Age” (great craggy solo from Valensi), tuneful “Someday,” the alone-in-the-city classic “Last Night” (“Last night she said/Oh baby I feel so down/When you turn me off/When I feel left out/So I, I turned round/Oh baby don’t care no more/I know this for sure/I’m walking out that door”), and the frenetic “Take It Or Leave It,” the Strokes were the darlings of the music press, especially in England.

The bloom came off the rose to a certain extent, however, when their second album “Room On Fire” suffered a notable sophomore jinx. Still young and full of promise, the Strokes are recording their third album and certainly shouldn’t be counted out.

Rock ‘n’ roll is here to stay — again.

MORE FROM ROCK

Pearl Jam boxes up shows for June release

Pearl Jam boxes up shows for June release Courtney Love plans to auction Cobain items McCartney CD ambles down ‘Memory’ Lane Motorcycle Club roars back to rock origins   Add Rock headlines to your news reader: