Swede emotion The Hives and Sahara Hotnights take on America BY CARLY CARIOLI

If you were to stroll down Lansdowne Street this Friday, you might come to the conclusion that the Hives, the garage-punk dandies from Fagersta, Sweden, have become kingmakers. Much of the available wall space nearby is already slathered with advertisements for the band’s new Tyrannosaurus Hives (Interscope), which they’ll support on Friday with a show at Avalon. Frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist is bringing along his girlfriend’s band, the Swedish girl group Sahara Hotnights, who have been signed to RCA and have a new album, Kiss and Tell, out this week. And next door at Axis the same night, the Hives’ old opening act, NYC garage-revivalists the Mooney Suzuki, are gearing up for a major-label debut on Columbia with a headlining gig.

It’s been four years since the Hives first released Veni Vidi Vicious, an album that trickled into the US via Epitaph’s licensing deal with the Swedish punk label Burning Heart and promptly went nowhere for the better part of two years, until a British label repackaged its best tunes — along with selections from the band’s back catalogue — as Your New Favourite Band (Poptones). The English went mad for it, a stylishly simple video snuck onto MTV, and, against all odds, American audiences suffering from instant Strokes fatigue connected with Howlin’ Pelle’s sarcastic, whip-smart yelp. Almqvist wore the self-satisfied smirk of a self-made star. The Hives hadn’t made even a blip on the radar during the late-’90s Scandinavian rock renaissance that brought groups like the Hellacopters, Turbonegro, and the Soundtrack of Our Lives a niche following in the US. Furthermore, Epitaph hadn’t been looking for a garage band: it had absorbed Burning Heart for its forward-thinking hardcore roster, most notably Refused. Before Your New Favourite Band became a sensation, CD singles of several Hives songs that would eventually become hits were allowed to come out in the US on other labels, including "Hate To Say I Told You So" (Gearhead) and "Main Offender" (Big Wheel Recreation). (Later, Epitaph licensed Veni Vidi Vicious to Warner Bros., a move that’s said to have infuriated the band, since they’d just signed a worldwide record deal with Universal. Just before the Universal subsidiary Interscope released Tyrannosaurus Hives last week, Warner Bros. countered by re-releasing Your New Favourite Band.)

That experience contributed to the Hives’ trademark affectation — smug diffidence — and to Howlin’ Pelle’s refreshing lack of modesty, which was in evidence long before he had the sales numbers to warrant it. While the White Stripes were selling garage punk as the last refuge of authentic rock and roll, the Hives were hiding behind matching show-band suits and a glaze of polished insincerity. In an ingenious ploy, the group claimed to be the creation of a mysterious songwriting svengali named Randy Fitzsimmons, thereby debuting a new strategy in the authenticity wars: instead of trying to prove they’re the genuine article, the Hives have dared us to prove they aren’t fakes.

But in the intervening years, a lot has changed. For one thing, the Hives have replaced their cravats and dickies with bow ties and spats. For another, the garage-rock revival never amounted to a grunge-strength revolution — the end result was media saturation, a few hit singles, and a handful of gold albums. Compared with what ’90s garage punks moved, that’s unthinkably huge. But by major-label standards, it’s extremely modest. In commercial terms, garage punk is, to paraphrase teen-pop queen Hilary Duff, so yesterday. If you turn on a radio, it sometimes seems that Duff and her contemporaries are the new garage-rockers. Take a listen to Hilary’s roaring Go-Go’s cover, or the latest string of Lindsay Lohan movie-soundtrack entries, or TV babe Ashlee Simpson. All, in their own way, are prime examples of the limited skill sets, slavish derivation, and misplaced pop ambition that drove the original wave of Nuggets-era garage bands. Meanwhile, garage punk is now largely the domain of professionals. On Tyrannosaurus Hives, the band are sticking to their svengali story, but elsewhere, there are ominous signs that garage rock’s sense of irony is wearing thin. Take the Mooney Suzuki, who hired actual svengalis — the Matrix, the team behind Hilary and Avril Lavigne — to produce their forthcoming Alive and Amplified (Columbia). Does someone somewhere think that, just maybe, garage rock is the new bubblegum-pop flavor?

Tyrannosaurus Hives is not, as you might expect, a vast departure from Hives form. If anything, it may count as a subtle retrenchment. But it’s messier, dirtier, and more electrifying than either of its two predecessors. What separated Veni Vidi from the legions of quite good garage-rock albums that had been percolating underground for the previous five years or so was, at most, consistency and a veneer of professionalism. The clean, clear downstrokes of "Hate To Say I Told You So" were less threatening than the unrulier hard rock of Turbonegro and the Hellacopters, who are arguably better songwriters; most important, though, "Told You So" had a tempo restrained enough to shimmy to, and just enough in the way of innocuous electronic embellishment to nudge casual listeners toward the dance floor without ruining the experience for Stooges fans.