Mando Diao - Long Before Rock n Roll

“Long Before Rock and Roll,” the first single off Mando Diao’s Ode to Ochrasy, is included twice on this, its self-titled EP; once as it normally is on the album from which it was spawned, and then again as a live recording. It’s a decent song, thoroughly inducing the right amount of white British boy faux-dancing to essentially excuse the blatant Libertines and Franz Ferdinand rips. As for the other tracks, “Popovic” sticks an electric riff over an acoustic rhythm, with mildly sexy results, “Cinderella” employs a loud voice over loud guitars and goes for the old crescendo before the chorus bit, and “Chet Baker” is a one-string acoustic piece somebody wrote on the bus on the way back to the hotel. Of course none of this matters at all, because everybody is here for the live show, which manages to make the Arctic Monkeys guitar bit sound threatening and vitalized, and when it’s shouted into a microphone, “Long before rock and roll!” sounds like the infallible word of God. Ask him to please bless lo-fidelity and stack amps. [www.mando-diao.com]