Mando Diao
Hurricane Bar
(Majesty)
Release Date: 7 March 2005

Mando Diao return with the stunning UK debut album Hurricane Bar, a record full of melodic gems, infectious tunes and unashamedly anthemic choruses. Current single You Can’t Steal My Love is just one of the highlights of this impressive collection of tracks, and features here in a longer version, with a piano and vocals interlude in a curiously jazzy style, before the chorus reprise and the

grand finale. Opener Cut The Rope gives us a taste of the album’s many themes: love, disillusion, and all the rage of five angry young men. It’s also quite a peculiar thing to see Gustaf Noren and Bjorn Dixgard taking their turn at being lead singers, and in God Knows giving their own personal flavour to the two halves of the track. Down In The Past is another remarkable number, whose lyrics “Honey you just left me for a new one…it doesn’t matter baby ‘cause you hair is ugly, too” reveal unexpected irony on a bitter thing like being left by one’s lover. Taking its musical heritage from bands such as The Strokes and The Libertines, Hurricane Bar has The Beatles, Van Morrison and Iggy Pop stirred into it, and if you add some classic country and a bit of Americana, you’ll realize Mando Diao have been cooking a dish with various flavours, but whose main taste is still good old rock and roll.

http://www.mando-diao.com

Giada Arnone

Mando Diao
Hurricane Bar Hurricane Bar ( 07/03/05 Majesty/Mute)

Their reputation was making waves and igniting fiery spirits over here along time before this Swedish quartet or any of their official releases landed upon our shores. They have been hailed as being a funkier and feistier Razorlight, resurrecting the endearingly destructive spirit of a long faded ‘Up The Bracket’ era The Libertines. Mando’s forays to the UK have not yet had anywhere near the impact many people expected, but this offering shows maturity and implies that the suave Swedes will stick around until their sound hits home.

From the outset of this fourteen track fireball of musical release that represents their UK debut album, the soaring Scandinavians really take off in ‘Cut The Rope’. This number goes back further than the above mentioned neo rock influences, as the track blends together early punk and new wave attitude and instrumentals. Also, tying in the spirit of Joe Strummer hanging onto the coat-tails of a prime time Jake Burns in the vocals Bjorn Dixard, in order to create anguish and intensity that builds up to the fervent re-iteration of the song title in a Stiff Little Fingers style chorus.

The slower and slightly more soothing previous single; ‘You Can’t Steal My Love’ illuminates a deep and earnest side to the band. Modern indie kids will be salivating at tracks like ‘Annie’s Angel’ and, to a lesser extent; ‘If I leave You’ that mixes the raw and ripping nature of Razorlight with the cutting edge catchiness of The Strokes. Mando Daio, with this offering could keep England captivated this spring and summer in the same way that fellow countryman Sven Goran Erikson has oft done in the past.

David Adair