Your Favourite New Band is one cocky album: a greatest hits of album tracks and B-sides five years into The Hives' career and a title that demands your adulation. The music's no less cocky, with these five Swedes playing bubble-gum metal with the self-assured swagger that only the truly narcissistic rock & roll stars can muster. This batch of glorious guitar romps displays an allegiance to the punk snarl of the New York Dolls, the power pop immediacy of Cheap Trick and the riotous rock of Metallica. There's absolutely nothing new about The Hives, then, but that's the point. Joyously, they reach back to the roots of rock excess with a pop sensibility that every aspiring band in the world craves. This band has that rare alchemy that takes the basic ingredients of rock & roll and makes them sound vital all over again. Your New Favourite Band closes with "The Hives Are Law, You Are Crime": cocky, but deservedly so. --Ben Clancy