Wichita Records

Released 25/01/10



First Aid Kit’s first full length effort is an expansion of the sounds explored on their 2009 E.P Drunken Trees. The two impossibly young sisters Johanna (19) and Klara (16) Soderberg still sing about matters seemingly beyond the range of their experience as they did on prodigiously forward-thinking songs like 'You’re Not Coming Home Tonight’, but the scope of The Big Black and the Blue is definitely bigger, with generally favourable results.

Opener 'In the morning' is short, harmony rich and a hark back to Drunken Trees with its lyric of ‘past the pasture land/and threw your wedding band/into the great deep/where you’d rest to sleep my dear.’  As ever, the foibles of marriage are never far from the surface and, as just as commonly, they are accompanied by little more than a strumming acoustic.  This is one of many songs that will compared with Fleet Foxes off the album; an inevitability considering just how similar they are, and also a result of the Seattle folkies playing a pivotal role in the girls getting signed after the sisters posted a video on youtube of them covering ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’, which subsequently got a ridicolous amount of views and alerted those clever people at Wichita to these two Swedish lassies spinning beautiful yarns out in the woods.

First single from the album ‘Hard Believer’ is a standout track with one of the most memorable lyrics; ‘’and its one life/and its this life/and its beautiful.’  From a purely personal perspective I find the more rinky-dinky nature stuff a bit tiresome, and it was for songs like this that I had been waiting so excitedly for the release of.  The voices here are delicate; the message clear and devoid of cliché.

The only song that tops it is ‘Ghost Town’ which, in surely a meaningful gesture, sits at the middle point of the album.  It’s a game-changer, a scene-stealer, a song that sticks out and makes the album worth buying by itself, like ‘Girl From The North Country’ or ‘Hope There’s Someone’. It shows the girls at their absolute best, telling from a first person perspective the impossibly sad tale of a couple destined to part due to one of theirs inability to settle.  The tracks drips with maturity, and as the track progresses we realise that its an ultimately doomed relationship despite the chorus of ‘‘if you’ve got visions of the past/let them follow you down/And I found myself attached to this railroad track/ but I’ll come back to you someday.’  Eventually, the protagonist realises their good intentions are groundless and admits ‘maybe I should just turn around and just walk away/ for no matter how much i really do want to stay/you know I can’t/you know its too late.’   We are not supposed to judge the narrator harshly for their desire to move on; instead its a song about growing up, lost romance and the inevitability of heartbreak and regrets.  It makes the mind boggle (with not a little attached jealousy) that these girls aren’t even out of their teens.

They venture back into Fleet territory on ‘Josefin’ with ‘’you run up the hiils/through the sun/you go head held high/face the sky.’  Again, though this is a nature-referencing lyrical style the band are clearly comfortable with it is, well, just a bit boring.  As with a other songs on the album- ‘Waltz For Richard’, ‘A Window Opens’- it plods somewhat.  Its nice and pretty n’ all, certainly doesn’t cause offence, but is also doesn’t do a great deal.  This was a problem at their gigs- some of the songs held one transfixed, others had you checking your watch waiting for a memorable couplet or melody like ‘Sailor Song’.

As a whole the The Big Black and The Blue is generally sound, but suffers from being a little bland.  They’ve not quite lived up to the promise of Drunken Trees, and for their next release I’d like to see them embrace a slightly more expansive style.  Despite this , songs like ‘Hard Believer’, ‘Sailor Song’ and the fantastic ‘Ghost’ Town display just what potential lies in this duo and, if there’s one thing they’ve got one thing going for them, it’s time.




 




 

Posted In Album Reviews, Jan 26 2010. Words - David