The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons
Hello and welcome to Friday. It is blog time, my friends. Today I will be sharing with you my promised review of The Hives’ latest album The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons. Reviewing albums is something id don’t do a lot and, as you will see from this review, I don’t really know what I am talking about when it comes to music. I like it though. I liked this album, Spoiler alert for the ending.
This album comes 11 years since their last studio release, Lex Hives in 2012. Since then, all we have heard from The Hives are a couple of singles in 2015 and 2019 and a live album. Things started to heat up again earlier this year with not-so-subtle online campaigns from the band themselves teasing a new album. We as fans were finally put out of our misery when a new album, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons and a new single, Bogus Operandi were announced and released respectively in May of this year.
The full-length album was released earlier this month and I have some thoughts on it. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes long, The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons doesn’t overstay its welcome. For those not in the know, the titular Randy Fitzsimmons is a character created as part of the lore of The Hives. It is said Fitzsimmons is the sole songwriter for the band. This is widely speculated to be a fictional story.
The album begins with the aforementioned Bogus Operandi. Some songs are just made for the purpose of album openers. This is an example of such. It drops right into the world of The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons and gets up off our metaphorical feet (or actual feet depending). It’s groovy, has a real anthemic feel and I have no doubt we will see it performed at most live shows going forward.
Coming hot right after Bogus Operandi is a return to straight-up energetic punk rock in the form of Trapdoor Solution. Another song I can see being played live a lot going forward. Just over a minute long, if the opening track doesn’t get your heart going, this song will. It’s quick, fun, and chaotic. We are greeted by the album’s second single straight away. It’s another anthemic song but it didn’t grab me right away upon a first listen. It just felt a bit repetitive and rushed. However, I have gained an appreciation for its lyrics. It is yet another song I can see added to the setlist going forward. On a personal note, I like it when songs gradually fade out instruments at the end. But that’s just me. I also liked the bass line.
Rigor Mortis Radio is by far my favourite song on the album. It is exactly what I expect from a Hives song. It is proper rock ‘n’ roll. It’s got cocky lyrics by the always entertaining lead singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist. I’ll be honest, I didn’t understand the backing vocals sung by guitarist Nicholaus Arson until reading the album booklet. That’s on me. Now understanding them, I appreciate the song even more. Tune into Rigor Mortis Radio indeed.
Unfortunately, we come to the latter part of the album where things start to dip. It’s hard to follow the likes of Rigor Mortis Radio and Stick Up does its best. It has grown on me, however. I like the jazzy swing style and can see it being played at future shows. The following song, Smoke & Mirrors is unfortunately considered, at least to me, as a filler song. It is fast-paced and has pop-esque guitar riffs which are good. But it is a lot tamer and radio-friendly as opposed to its predecessors.
Crash into the weekend is kind of a return to centre, thankfully. Riddled with handclaps and a bluesy country feel, I will try and listen to this song every Friday, for obvious reasons. I liked Almqvist’s crooning vocals but noticed the lack of drums in the mix. As a drummer myself I felt like they were drowned out just a tad. Two Kinds of Trouble follows as a return to simplistic power-chord heavy rock and roll. The guitars have effects on them, which I liked. The lyrics are a bit cringy, which I liked.
That’s the Way the story goes could be considered as a bit of a filler song that takes elements from songs that we have already heard but has a trippy intro which is not the case with all of the songs on this record. The hand claps are very Hives (I think that’s safe to say at this point). Unfortunately, the vocals were incomprehensible and that was disappointing.
The Bomb is one silly song. The lyrics are nonsense and a bit childish. I like it though. As a fan, I can understand that some songs are written to be played live and this song is one of them. It’s a short punk rock song that I know will get the crowd going whenever it is played from now on. What Did I Ever Do To You? Has a lot of mainstream appeal. For me, it is kind of reminiscent of AM-era Arctic Monkeys. I don’t mind that. I know that these bands are friendly with each other and even toured together this past summer. You can learn a lot from each other as musicians (coming from a non-musician).
The album does end on kind of a nothing song in the form of Step out of the Way. The issue I have with this is that this song could have been placed literally anywhere within the album and it would be fine. However, I don’t think it best suited the last song. Due to this, the album kind of ends with a whimper. When we look back at the beginning with Bogus Operandi, I wish we could have ended with the same amount of epic.
Overall, it was simply nice to have a Hives album to look forward to after becoming a fan between albums; and a long in-between at that. I am always going to appreciate a band that keeps the same style over an almost 30-year period and barely budges and succumbs to the corporate overlords.
4/5, by the way.
