There really is no more appropriate title for The Hives new disc because the band's music has always been and continues to be an explosion of fast and high intensity guitar-driven garage rock.,”For its fourth album, The Hives have put on sharper looking suits, used a bit less hair gel, but still pump out handfuls of power on The Black and White Album (released Nov. 13).

There really is no more appropriate title for The Hives new disc because the band's music has always been and continues to be an explosion of fast and high intensity guitar-driven garage rock.

Remember in high school when the garage rock revival bands The Strokes, The Vines, the White Stripes, Jet, The Black Keys and The Hives hit it big? Years later, the "The" bands are all still making music, but the novelty of garage rock has seemed to alienate the mainstream.

Making sure not to disown the brotherhood of garage rock bands, The Hives sticks to their guns, or guitars, for a familiar sounding album with hopes its catches listeners' attention more than the next blog-popular indie band.

The band's lead singer, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist continues to babble on through each track like he doesn't quite understood the language of rock, English. He lets out a bunch of "Hey's" and "Yeah's," not to mention plenty of "Uh's" in repetition to apparently mimic what great English-speaking rock singers do every song.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah / I was right all along / Yeah, yeah, yeah / You come tagging along / Exhibit A / On a tray / What you say / Ends up thrown in your face / Exhibit B / What you see / Well that's me," yelps Almqvist on the first single "Tick Tick Boom." To be fair, what is garage rock without silly lyrics and an excessive amount of "Yeah's?"

What's most important on The Black and White Album is the killer guitar riffs. The Hives has crafted their own type of guitar riff and on the band's fourth album, the formula is instantly recognizable: One guitar starts out by playing the main riff, then a second distorted guitar and bass jump in on the next measure in perfect unison playing the same notes and rhythms to instigate hip-jarring and head-shaking from listeners.

Songs like "Tick Tick Boom," "Try it Again" and "We All Right" use this formula and sound almost indistinguishable from the band's early hits like "Hate to Say I Told You So." But The Hives have dared to do the unthinkable in the world of garage rock by adding a synthesizer on tracks like "It Won't Be Long." The band also ventures into bass-to-the-face electro funk on "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S." produced by Pharrell Williams.

The Hives finds ways on The Black and White Album to freshen its usually grind of guitar heavy garage rock but still tune every track up to fit perfectly on the classic record.

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