First Aid Kit – My Silver Lining
SoundCloud
Swedish sister duo, First Aid Kit, make country music for people who don’t really like country music. In recent years, there have been countless other bands who have tread that fine line between folk and country such as Lord Huron and Shakey Graves, but perhaps none have approached the watered-down-whiskey style with as much sophistication as First Aid Kit. There’s a fair amount of twang and slide guitar to be had, but their sound is wholly rooted in classic country, not flirting with CMT kitsch in the least — which isn’t to say that their appeal isn’t wide-ranging. Their third full-length, Stay Gold, is their largest and most accessible album yet, packed with horizon-sized melodies and lush harmonies for days.
First Aid Kit aren’t your typical Swedish popsters, but rather sound like they’ve worshiped at the altars of June Carter and Loretta Lynn and come away endowed with gifts from the goddesses. Rarely a phrase without harmony, Stay Gold is warm and undeniably catchy despite its downer subject material. Mostly longing for something just out of reach, the wistful sentiments suit their mournful voices by shading them with a lovely tone of blue that’s inevitably outshone by the end of every chorus. This blinding sunshine beaming from every perfectly pieced together track is both their best quality and their worst — while its happy music, their sound only plunges into the shadows of their lyrics once. About two minutes into “Heaven Knows”, they unravel — “And what’ll you do if it comes down to it, and it all goes straight to hell?!” For all their elegance, the idea of them exploring their primal side is enthralling, even more so with this album than ever before.
Although perfection can eventually become monotonous, First Aid Kit have proven that their songcraft is on the up and up with an album full of beaming, opulent singles. End the song on any given track and that’s the one that will end up echoing in your head, pointing once again to the fact that their appeal is likely to swell beyond the country-folk niche even more than it already did with 2012’s The Lion’s Roar. For all of the constant disappointment they sing about here, it’s obvious to anyone who listens to Stay Gold that the feeling isn’t going to be around much longer.
