First Aid Kit
Stay Gold
(Columbia)
It’s not often that YouTube sensations become successful recording artists. First Aid Kit is the exception. After a 2008 music video went viral, the group started touring and recording. Its career picked up when it teamed with Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley) for 2012’s The Lion’s Roar. And now, First Aid Kit finally makes its major label debut. Working again with Mogis, Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Soderberg don’t alter their formula much. Album opener “My Silver Lining” features cooing vocals and makes use of a soaring string arrangement. The soft vocal delivery in songs such as “Master Pretender” have a naturalness that recalls Fleetwood Mac more than Fleet Foxes, the band to which the group is most often compared. The music here has a certain preciousness to it, but the album comes off as a terrific distillation of the country folk sound the band has made its own.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2014.
