The Hives: Tyrannosaurus Hives
The Hive’s previous covers were all very forgettable, bland affairs. In fact they are so bad I’ll post the below.
While not actually deviating that much from their previous covers, Tyrannosaurus Hives look timeless. While the previous endeavours look terribly dated.
This cover however makes you stand up and take notice. It doesn’t say anything about the type of music they play its all attitude. And that attitude is we’re gonna kick your ass… in style.
The middle guy has a sort of Malcolm McDowell from Clockwork Orange look about him. In fact the illustration itself feels like these five “droogs” are going to beat down on me. Except the fat guy to the right, he’s probably get puffed trying to catch me as I ran away.
This cover reminds me of House Industries and their amazing oil paintings.
However this cover was illustrated by Swedish painter Mikael P. Eriksson who has no profile online to speak of.
Grant Partridge:
A friend pointed out a very interesting (and certainly intentional) discontinuity between the front and back covers for this release. Is that…are there…six pairs of legs?
# 29 Aug 07 at 4:16 am
ollie:
Yes I noticed this with the legs too. I think it might be a referance to the fictional/real songwriter “Randy Fitzsimmons” who suposeadly writes all the hives songs but has never been seen?
# 29 Aug 07 at 9:37 pm
Ash:
Good find with the legs Grant. A subtle hidden message for the fans I guess.
# 30 Aug 07 at 12:45 am
Grant:
that was my thought too, ollie.
can’t wait to hear the next one - supposedly they plan on calling it ‘the world’s first perfect album’. with a name like that, it -has- to be good!
-g
# 30 Aug 07 at 4:21 am
Gabriel:
Mikael does have an online portfolio, he is on the swedish agentur called Rithuset:
http://www.rithuset.se/
# 25 Sep 07 at 8:00 am
Nils-Petter Lovgren:
the cover concept and art direction is done by Henke Walse you can find more of his stuff here:
http://www.walsecustomdesign.com/
-np
# 28 Feb 08 at 12:37 am
Miko:
What are..? I mean.. buh..
The moment I saw that cover originally the first thing I thought was “Wow, The Hives are really letting their cover design go”.
Then I looked more closely. And thought “Yep, this is definitely their first genuinely bad cover. What a shame, they used to have such visual panache.”
The earlier covers are all so dynamic and stripped-down, and this new one’s bland, beige, and overstuffed. Not to mention that most of the band are almost unrecognizable, as if they’d all had a faceful of bee stings.
# 18 Apr 08 at 7:42 pm