First Aid Kit
The Lion’s Roar
(Wichita/Liberator)
The sheer fact of two teenaged sisters from Sweden harmonising over rustic folk tunes was enough to land the spotlight on First Ait Kit a few years back. Then came last year’s The Big Black & The Blue, a self-produced debut fostering a ghostly, homespun intimacy between the listener and Johanna and Klara Söderberg. Now, with Bright Eyes player/producer Mike Mogis at the helm, the siblings continue to couch their native accents while slipping all too easily into twangy Americana.
If it sounds a bit like genre mimicry at the start, First Aid Kit find admirable range in the end. The breezy pop exhalation of the standout ‘Blue’ works just as well as the preternatural folk wisdom of ‘This Old Routine’ and ‘In the Hearts of Men’. ‘Dance to Another Tune’ combines both, thanks to the string-swept release of its bridge, and ‘New Year’s Eve’ is a quiet lullaby of salvation that transcends genre. That said, the Söderbergs embrace their American heroes, citing poet Frank O’Hara (‘To A Heart’) and country greats Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons (‘Emmylou’), among others.
The instrumentation and production may be top-drawer now, but those voices are still the big attraction. Haloed in reverb or set to a pleasant shuffle, they maintain a shiver-down-the-spine quality, that plaintive creak and affecting swoon well intact. Some of the sisters’ vocal uniqueness may have departed in the cleaning-up process, but what seems bland on first listen becomes distinct as the songs get their hooks in.
It’s also nice to see the Söderbergs grow beyond mere loveliness. On the Conor Oberst-guesting finale ‘King of the World’, a sprightly clap and strum blossoms into a horn-aided romp. It’s surprisingly raucous as well as openly defying First Aid Kit’s precious image: “I’m nobody’s baby/I’m everybody’s girl/I’m the queen of nothing/I’m the king of the world.” It reminds us, too, that folk music isn’t all sombre reflection.
Doug Wallen