Some more impressions:

To cut to the bone, this album is over produced. The last 3 albums sound like The Hives are just going crazy in front of some mics, this album the sound like they planned on recording an album and carefully crafted and cleaned up and layered these tracks. So it does sound different. But there are still some great songs on here. The lead single “tick tick boom” is classic Hives. Great tune.

There are a few producers on the album and you can tell…pretty sure his finger prints are all over “giddy up”, a song that I love and hate. It’s very different for the Hives, but it’s really catchy too. Annoying too, it’s really hard to describe. Another iffy track for me is “puppet on a string” (some catchy hooks, but it’s slow and repetitive. Saying a Hives song is repetitive is redundant though). And I’m still on the fence with “T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S”. Good mixed with annoying. The only track I really hate is the 6th one, so much so that I took it out of the playlist. The Hives have done some instrumentals before and the kick ass, this one is just really out there. It doesn’t sound like a Hives track, it should never have made it onto the album.

Aside from that, I love the remaining 10 songs. “You Dress Up For Armageddon” being my current favorite. Solid album, not sure how well it’s going to be received though.