Lex Hives is the fifth full-length album by Swedish rock band The Hives. The album was released on 1 June 2012 in Sweden, and internationally from 4 June 2012. Lex Hives was self-produced by The Hives and mixed by Grammy Award winner Andrew Scheps, with two additional tracks mixed by D. Sardy and Joe Zook. The deluxe version features bonus tracks produced by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme. The term "Lex Hives" is a phrase derived from the ancient Roman practice of enacting a system or body of laws and accepting them as a standard. It became the last album from the band to feature bassist Dr. Matt Destruction as he left due to health reasons in late 2013 and was replaced by Randy bassist Johan Gustafsson, under the stage name The Johan and Only.
Background
After recording two albums for the Universal Music Group's Interscope label, the band did not want to extend the deal, and so the band found themselves as free agents. The Hives responded by going independent for their fifth album. Lex Hives was self-funded and self-produced, and has been issued on the band's own Disques Hives imprint. As for why the band took five years between albums, frontman Howlin' Pelle Almqvist noted the group toured for nearly three years after The Black and White Album, but added that self-producing an album with a five-piece band is not the quickest of ways to reach a consensus. "We thought it would be faster if we produced it ourselves as opposed to scheduling it with someone who’s busy 24-7, 365 days per year," Almqvist said. "Rather than squeeze in some studio time, we could go into the studio whenever we wanted. It turns out that having five producers who have an equal say of everything isn’t that fast. You’d think we could have guessed that in advance." For promotion, The Hives initiated a contest on social networking websiteFacebook on 23 March 2012. A news update on their official website revealed the song titles on 12 tracks however they were purposely jumbled up. Fans had to post their guesses as to what they thought the tracks were called on the band's official Facebook page. It stated that the first person to unscramble all the song titles correctly would "receive a phone call from The Hives." The band announced the grand prize winner and 17 runners-up on their Facebook page on 6 April 2012.
Reception
The album debuted at number 7 on the Swedish chart, 20 on the Swiss chart, 38 on the Austrian chart, 38 on the Australian chart and 53 on the Canadian Albums Chart. It was also number 1 on the Swedish iTunes chart and number 25 on the separate Australian digital album chart. The album received generally favorable reviews from critics.
