Review: First Aid Kit – The Big Black and The Blue
First Aid Kit - The Big Black and The Blue (2010) [Witchita] //Grade: A
I think most people would agree that Dakota Fanning is a brilliant actress for her age. From her very first roles on, she’s had the disarming, and at times creepy, aura of mature adult trapped in a child’s body. Her ability to bring poise and sophistication to characters that actresses ten (or more) years her senior would struggle with, makes Fanning an arguable prodigy at her chosen craft.
If Dakota Fanning defines this prodigious child in film, then Swedish sisters and Johanna and Klara Söderberg (ages 19 and 16) are her contemporaries in music. The Söderberg sisters have been making music together since childhood, and their debut album, The Big Black and The Blue, is a modern folk work that showcases the girls’ wondrous voices through harmonies that never falter and only the most simplistic of acoustic guitar and auto-harp backing. The Big Black and The Blue could have easily been recorded on a front porch in the Appalachian mountains or on the road to Woodstock, but it was recorded far from the reaches of American folk, in suburban Sweden, and the moments where you catch the girls’ gently lilting accents are some of the albums most special.
Songwriting is the at the forefront of the Söderbergs’ music and they’re extremely gifted. Their lyrics are contemplative, insightful words on themes far more complex than their teenage years could have experienced. “Heavy Storm” opens with I wish I could believe in something bigger / more than these trees, these winds, these oceans / I wish I could believe what they tell me and is only one of the countless moments across the album where I’m left feeling like I’ve seen a ghost.
The Söderbergs’ are wise storytellers whose poetic compositions strike the core of human emotion. How two girls so young, could know so much already about life, and relay their tales with articulate poise and capable voices, gives The Big Black and The Blue a curious, and at times, eerie, lingering effect. The Big Black and The Blue‘s instrumentation is sparse at best, but you rarely notice. The Söderbergs’ voices and words are powerful enough to carry the entire album.
