We recently interviewd Dr. Matt Destruction, the mustachioed bassist of The Hives. Their latest album, the Black And White Album, is my favorite from them yet, probably owing to its musical diversity (within the spectrum of garage rock, anyway). Dr. Matt was cool, and even through a series of bad connections and a mild language barrier (I had to explain what a pinky toe is, for example) we managed to get the goods out of him.

Check it out on our main site here.

Like most songs by The Hives, I have absolutely no idea what “Tick Tick Boom” is all about. Love Pelle Almqvist’s voice, but definitely think his lyrics need a bit of work. But whatever, I guess not everyone needs to be a Leonard Cohen. Actions speak louder than words anyway, and in their video for “tick Tick Boom” they are giants, they fuck the shit out of art and make big explosions and funny faces. Their new album, The Black and White Album, hits US shores Tuesday November 13th.

Loney, Dear, which is essentially one young Swedish dude named Emil Svanängen and whoever he can rope into playing with him, is basically a fey-music badass. No, he’s not ever going to make anyone contemplate starting a circle-pit, but sometimes I just want to sit around in a sweater-vest, cut out collages and sip blueberry Stoli, and for those moments, nothing beats Loney, Dear’s album Loney, Noir. It rocks in a most emasculated manner.

Every time I hear his track “I Am John” I get super excited all over again, and thank the heavens that Sub Pop exists to find and put that shit out in the US (How much longer they’ll exist? That’s another story and good fodder for the rumor mill…).

The video for “I AM John” was directed by Andreas Nilsson, who blew up a minute ago for his work on The Knife’s “Like a Pen” video. But this shit is way better:

Happiest music to be set to a cartoon about assassinations, ever.
Plus, there’s a death orchestra, and a dude dancing with a reindeer. What a wicked display of raditude.

If anyone wants to fly me out to Reykjavík during October 19-21 I will totally check out Loney, Dear, plus Deerhoof, mum, Of Montreal, !!! and about 100 other bands at the Iceland Airwaves festival. I would totally do that for you. But if I meet Emil there I’m going to try and convince him to get rid of that errant comma. Gotta ditch that shit holmes. Loney, Dear, you’ve been warned.