Weekly Release Spotlight: First Aid Kit
Posted on 1/29/2012
First Aid Kit
The Lion's Roar
Wichita
The Lion's Roar
Wichita
First Aid Kit’s The Lion’s Roar lays down a contemplative rock soundtrack that’s perfect for a wintery day spent walking around the Minneapolis area. The band is gathering a following here in the U.S. but they’re already trés chic in Sweden, their home country. The Lion’s Roar is the top-selling album over there right now. If you want to hop on the bandwagon while it’s hip, cool, and cutting edge then you’d better get on because these girls are going places fast.
The Swedish siblings, Johanna and Klara Söderberg, have the raw voices that dip and crack at unexpected moments but that doesn’t hurt them, in fact, it makes their tunes that much more relatable and fun to listen to. The accompanying music follows the same kind of pattern: very acoustic but furnished just enough to create a smooth and controlled but “real” kind of sound. Producer Mike Mogis (producer for the likes of M. Ward and Bright Eyes) makes sure that the album doesn’t fall under the weight of rawness and keeps it light enough to easily listen to. “Emmylou” might be the perfect song off the album to describe The Lion’s Roar in whole: country-esque (sans the “twang”) ballad dedicated to all the classic country artists who influenced the two musicians. It’s a song that demonstrates how much the two believe it’s important to sing and create with the ones you love, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album. If the descriptor “country” scares you off, don’t be so quick to abandon: Fleet Foxes can also be related to the genre and First Aid Kit is definitely reminiscent of the ever popular Fleet Foxes. In fact, First Aid Kit did a cover of the song “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” and its explosion on the interweb is partly what brought First Aid Kit their fame.
After their following grew the sisters worked even harder to create magical, melancholic melodies. The album has everything from your typical guitars and drums to the not so expected flutes, trumpets, and bells. It’s this mixture of instruments and the bouncy, catchy melodies that the girls come up with that keeps The Lion’s Roar from becoming too dark. The lyrics to their songs can be quite sad (“This Old Routine”): a meta on the mundane realities of life. The last song on the album though, “King of the World,” brings the listener to a “happy ending” of sorts and the girls combine their light, multi-instrumental melody with lyrics of hopefulness- it’s the sound of happiness. It’s a great way to end the album simply because it’s different: different than other songs in the indie world and different from the rest of the songs on the album. It’s a show that the Söderberg sisters have more up their sleeve just when you think they’ve pulled out all their tricks.
First Aid Kit - "Emmylou"