The Swedes have always been great at assimilating English language rock and pop and selling it back to us. The Hives are one of the few Swedish acts ballsy enough to say this out loud, tossing in any number of boastful superlatives in the process. Yet anyone who writes the group off as some kind of joke has clearly never heard much of the Hives. Just about every track on The Black and White Album backs up the band's swagger with manic energy and endless hooks. Well, maybe not endless. No song hits the four-minute mark, and the album clocks out in a cool 45 minutes. The Hives explode with larger-than-life garage rock on "Tick Tick Boom," "Square One Here I Come" and "Try It Again"; get funky with Pharrell on "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S."; and even take it down a notch for the finger-snappin' cabaret, "Puppet on a String." The Hives play dumb like the rock geniuses they may very well be.

-- Joshua Klein