Mando Diao - Ode To Ochrasy

The third album from Swedish post-punks Mando Diao sees the band exploring areas in their sound they’d yet to visit in their previous work. While ‘Ode To Ochrasy’ still has the pop-punk sound that has made them popular all over the Eastern hemisphere (except the UK), they’ve taken cues from their other influences as well.

‘The New Boy’ features an orchestrated background reminiscent of mid-career Beatles. The lyrics are almost bittersweet, and the vocals delightfully light while still sounding naive and innocent.

‘Josephine’ is another ballad from the album, and another new sound. It’s a fresh combination of soulful blues and reggae drenched over breezy lyrics of a girl who has lost her way to drugs and alcohol.

Though at first it isn’t obvious, ‘Ode To Ochrasy’ is a concept album. Instead of following around one character throughout, however, Mando Diao introduce the listener to a whole scheme of them, all caricatures of real people they’ve met whilst touring, visiting packed venues to run-down bars.

There’s the mysterious, possibly-a-terrorist ‘Killer Kazcynski’, the gangster ‘Tony Zoulias’, ‘Josephine’, the washed out drug addict, the homeless ‘Herr Horst’, and ‘Aberdeen’, the makeup-covered alcoholic artist.

The album ends with ‘Ochrasy’, a folky anti-war song about a man who just wants to escape to an imaginary world of the same name, because every time he looks outside his window or turns on the TV, all he sees is violence and war.

While some of the songs on the album will leave you feeling cold, the majority will want you to start dancing or bring a tear to your eye.