Sweden is becoming a bigger hotbed for rock imports. When European rock bands invade U.S. shores, they typically come from England (Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand), Ireland (U2) or Norway (A-Ha). Sweden’s ability to pump out quality bands has grown in recent years.
Bands like The Hive, Razorlight, and The Soundtrack Of Our Lives have enjoyed some North American success. Other bands like I’m From Barcelona, Peter Bjorn And John, and The Sounds have gained critical acclaim, yet are still searching for an audience. Mando Diao is in the latter group of bands trying to find that spark into mainstream consciousness.
It’s not like the band isn’t trying. Energetic is Mando’s signature sound. The band had so much enthusiasm with its first album Bring ‘Em In that you didn’t think there would be any left for a second album (Hurricane Bar), let alone a third. With Ode To Ochrasy, Mando takes the lively, somewhat hyper energy of its debut album and evolves it into a more relaxed, albeit still punkish energetic throwback to sixties rock.
The open track “Welcome Home Luc Robitaille” sets the tone with its calming verses juxtaposed with a bouncing rebellious chorus. The next track “Killer Kaczynyski” with even its title screams mania. You don’t know it’s a Mando album until “The Wildfire” where the band plays its signature inflective melodies in emphasizing the first choral syllables.
Toward the Ode’s middle is where you start to feel a mood shift. Frontman Bjorn Dixgard explains it with the album’s title “ochrasy” as “that hallucinatory world you enter around four and five in the morning… a sort of utopian world where anything can happen, where everything is allowed.” The swing is strongest felt in the composed “Amsterdam” with its imagery of complete uncertainty. Placed in-between the surf-at-the-beach melodies of “Tony Zoulias” and the mellow love letter to couch potatoes everywhere in “TV And Me,” “Amsterdam” finds itself balancing the effects of alcohol and partying with the moment of sobriety when adrenaline vanishes and drunkenness wears off.
Article comments
1 - satsuki
Glad you liked the album, but The New Boy is by Gustaf Norén, not Björn. But it may not be easy to know who plays / writes what in each band when you must listen to loads of records in a short time, so... I enjoyed the review, thanks.
2 - Paul
Razorlight are from London.
3 - scottm_usadj
Mando Diao is a great band--they do keep changing up their style. They already have another coming out overseas and can hear it on their myspace page. Another stylistic shift, this time over to acoustic and folk--but there are some fantastic songs on their as well (notably 'Gold'). Probably the most pompous band since Oasis--but these guys actually live up to it.