EP Review: Detroit Social Club – Kiss The Sun EP

Kasabian may only be toddlers in terms of rock, but they’ve already inspired legions of slack-jawed, wannabe stadium rockers – take Detroit Social Club, who are so inexplicably devoted to emulating Kasabian’s dunderheaded stadium swagger, even their band name’s alternate acrostic  ‘Defy Social Control’ reeks of Meighan’s trademark simplistic, watered-down take on social anarchism.

The EP kicks off less than promisingly; ‘Kiss The Sun’s stabbing guitars and squalling reams of industrial clanking conjure up an almost-exciting air of growing menace never fully actualised on the song’s lacklustre, painfully hubristic chorus.

‘Kiss The Sun’s overblown bark is better than it’s painfully anti-climactic bite – it threatens visceral, fearfully bairnstorming indie rock, but in reality it’s all deathly dour. And in the end, Burn’s hubris is his downfall – he is incapable of playing a song without swathing it in faux-krautrock production build-up, making his limp, beery choruses all the more insulting.

But there’s diamonds (however grimy) in the rough – ‘Black & White’ is a surprising anomaly to this otherwise piss-poor EP; Burn’s unwieldy growl – while seemingly bland on the pale-faced imitations of rock which make up the rest of this EP – takes on a glorious life of it’s own on ‘Black & White’, who’s willowy, bluesy structure – unfettered by the limp, embarrassing choruses which plague every other track on the EP – allows Burn’s to display his considerable pipes to wondrous effect.

On ‘Kiss The Sun’ Burns manages to retain some of his dignity, and surprisingly comes across as a fairly decent musician – there’s no denying that there’s considerable strength in his voice, if only he’d unchain it from its lad-rock shackles – but this EP serves no attraction whatsoever to any music fans whose idea of a good concert isn’t bolshing around in a grimy, Godforsaken pit with a hundred other sweaty men spilling lager on their heads.

In fact, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to listen this EP apart from hardcore Oasis fans, inexplicably pining the Gallagher’s dubious, loutish charm – but even the most thick-skulled cretin of a music fan won’t be able to glean any kind of enjoyment from Detroit Social Club’s insipid pastiche of stadium rock.

Feature: NI Music Scene

If the words ‘Irish Music Scene’ conjure up images of U2 and Snow Patrol, with just a smattering of Enya, then you’re in for a bit of a shock – forget about bland,  soft-rockers or whispery Irishwoman lisping cloyingly about leprechauns, the Irish indie music scene is bigger, bolder and more vibrant than it’s ever been. This is the same isle which spawned the intense Punk viscerality of The Undertones, after all – hold on tight, London folk, you’re in for a belter!

Lets start with a band that shouldn’t be entirely unheard of to most 405ers, Two Door Cinema Club, who hail from specifically, the Bangor/Donaghadee area (Nice!) and play the kind of insanely catchy indie-pop clearly enthralled to the likes of Belle & Sebastian and The Most Serene Republic – but with incredible, incessantly-cheerful, pop-rock riffs. It may sound damningly ageist, but Two Door Cinema Club’s biggest pull is their youth – their music has the kind of deranged, twitterpated excitement only achieved in the joyful throes of adolescence.

In fact, they kind of sound like what would happen, if, as a consequence of a  devastating nuclear chemical spill in the Enchanted Forest, Bambi’s Thumper, somehow developed opposable thumbs, taught himself to play the guitar and joined an indie-pop band – and if that daft analogy didn’t convince you of Two Door Cinema Club’s infectious joie-de-vivre, then maybe current single ‘I Can Talk’ might – if this track doesn’t burrow it’s way into your ears and hibernate there, joyfully, for months to come, then you’re a stronger man than I am.

Let’s keep the adrenaline pumping with Belfast trio Not Squares, who playriff-packed, electronics-filled, bass-heavy, visceral indie-rock that’ll have Alex Turner seething in jealousy. And apart from anything else, they have the singular BEST PROMO PICTURE I HAVE EVER SEEN. I am assuming band is not actually made up of what appears to be two hipster unicorns, as I think playing visceral, bass-heavy indie rock would be quite tricky with hooves.  Also, they all appear to be firmly human in this wonderful video of the barnstorming ‘Asylum’ live on the Big British Castle’s Introducing stage.

If all this talk of thumpers and hipsters and unicorns and Alex Turners has made you want to lie down in a dark room with a cold flannel on your face, then I know the perfect band to listen to whilst doing so – Belfast band Katie and The Carnival have long been sharing a stage with dreadlocked folkie Duke Special, and are finally ready to step it out on their own – with an undeniably alluring, seductive quality to her voice, Katie creates the kind of smoky jazz Norah Jones might make if you snuck loads of vodka in her diet coke. With delightfully creepy, ramshackle tunes such as the sultry ‘I Can’t Get No Sleep’, and theatrics coming out of their eyeballs, you’d be a fool not to catch The Carnival live around the Belfast area. Here’s a video of The Carnival playing in what appears to be a vintage charity shop. How whimsical.

However, if you prefer your folkies with a little less glitter and a little more beard then have no fear – Armagh men Captain Kennedy play the kind of deliciously warm, woodsmoked blues that mark them out as the Irish equivalent of Mumford & Sons – and true, be-whiskered frontman Ciaran Lavery’s bluesy howl and heartbroken sincerity means he bears more than a passing resemblance to Marcus Mumford, although Captain Kennedy serve their grimy Americana with a twist of gin – their sound is far more enthralled to Old Crow Medicine Show’s dirty  ‘hey y’alls!’ than Marcus’s scrubbed-up take on folk. A band of true authentics, listen to them playing the lovely ‘Caroline’ below. Yee-haw.

EP Review: Caitlin Rose – Dead Flowers EP

Read our interview with Caitlin HERE.

Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Jenny Lewis, Monsters of Folk…just when you’d thought Americana had been done and done to death, along comes Caitlin Rose - ’Rock & Roll’s tambourine-toting little sister’ who plays her gutsy country ditties with a charming, wide-eyed authenticity, suggesting she is entirely unaware that every dude with a beard and a banjo has been desperately trying to emulate the same sepia-tinted nostalgias she conjures on ‘Dead Flowers’ with enviable ease – and heaps of added sass.

The EP kicks off a jaunty ode to quickie marriages, ‘Shotgun Wedding’ – Ms. Rose, tongue firmly in cheek, spouts winning lines such as ‘It’s the right thing boy/ Put that ring around her finger/ And don’t you stop to worry that the feeling won’t linger…’ with a sweetly spry sarcasm, contrasting nicely with the poe-faced sentiments spouted by many of Caitlin’s peers – there’s no room for any kind of Oberst-style nihilism on ‘Dead Flowers’; Caitlin’s having way too much fun for that.

And despite the EP’s bleak title, on ‘Dead Flowers’ Caitlin’s prerogative is simply having fun -’Gorilla Man’ sees Caitlin displaying her deliciously childish sense of humour –featuring Caitlin chirruping over a bizarre, tambourine-accompanied primate waltz like a Southern Kimya Dawson, it falls firmly on the right side of twee. On her MySpace, Caitlin may describe herself as ‘uneducated and dumb’, but it seems someone’s been paying attention in English class – ‘Gorilla Man’ is full of the kind of droll, searingly witty word-plays that’d make English teachers swoon; a particular highlight is ‘Now he’s with some chimpanzee/ And all she’s doing’s aping me/ Gorilla man, come down and talk to me’.

However, there’s far more to Caitlin than comedy – ‘Dead Flowers’ plays host to it’s fair share of heartbreak too – see lovelorn torchsong ‘T-Shirt’, where Caitlin coos ‘Baby, I’m sorry/ But I’m not the way that you saw me’ with uncharacteristic (but touching) sincerity, and the two covers on ‘Dead Flowers’; Patsy Cline’s ‘Two Cigarettes In An Ashtray’ and ‘Dead Flowers’ by The Rolling Stones, which both prove that Caitlin Rose can sing with heart-wrenching strength when she wants to.

The EP’s charming centrepiece, however, is ‘Docket’ – which comes on like a sassier, non-cloying and generally better version of The Moldy Peaches’ classic ‘Anyone Else But You’ and features probably the EP’s finest lyric – ‘I got a fresh pack/ I got a red bit/ The Surgeon General can suck on my dick/ Woah-oh-oh’; any naysayers who have marked Caitlin down as a pale imitation of Linda Ronstadt or Patsy Cline will have their invectives immediately hushed on listening to ‘Docket’; it’s impossible to imagine any of the country legends Caitlin is frequently compared to delivering the supremely childish insult with the same level of wide-eyed nonchalance as Caitlin does – Caitlin doesn’t just deserve those numerous weighty comparisons to the country greats, she downright transcends them!

In conclusion, ‘Dead Flowers’ is an EP of almost unbelievable quality – featuring both genuine belly-laughs and heartbreaking ardencies, if Ms. Rose doesn’t garner some serious attention in the coming months and years, I’ll eat my Stetson.

9/10

Interview: Jesca Hoop

You won’t find a better or more elegiac description of Jesca Hoop’s music than the one given by the legendary Tom Waits: “She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon,” he remarked, in a single sentence evocatively summing Jesca’s achingly sensual brand of bewitching folk, which strikes a perfect balance between the tattered, age-old pulpit blues of her childhood, and the contemporary pop of her present, interwoven with the kind of dream-like, lush imagery that’d have Joanna Newsom quaking in her fringed moccasins.

Fresh from a UK Tour with Andrew Bird, Jesca Hoop is promoting her debut proper ‘Hunting My Dress’ in the UK now – check out her myspace HERE

Hello Jesca! How are you today?

I’m alright, thanks!

You’ve been touring around the UK this December– how have they been treating you so far? What’s been your favourite venue?

It’s all good for me on this side of the pond. Gosh, the venues really blur together… I’m really fond of the union chapel in London.

You’ve also been doing the European support slot for the fantastic Andrew Bird – your version of ‘Oh Sister’ is really lovely. How has touring with Andrew been for you? Have you a particular favourite touring moment?

My favourite Andrew Bird tour moment was spending hours in a Belgian spa in Gent

Do you find that your songs make the translation to live versions well?

Yes in fact I am very excited about playing these shows with my UK band.

I’ve seen a couple of pictures of you using some unusual instruments live –including this really interesting-looking box with bellows. I’ve looked it up, and I think it’s called a Sruti Box. How did you begin playing the Sruti Box?

I learned about the sruti box from a Buddhist friend of mine. It’s the easiest instrument on earth to play!

Your fantastic debut ‘Hunting My Dress’ is out now. How do you feel it differs from your 2007 release ‘Kismet’? Do you feel your musical style has developed since ‘Kismet’?

Kismet was produced by three producers – there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen!  Hunting my dress while – still produced by Tony Berg and I – is more of a singular vision. I had gained experience from making kismet and I applied what I had learned to hunting my dress. ‘Less is more’ was my motto and I put the vocal and its story first.

Do you have a favourite from ‘Hunting My Dress’, or a track that you’re particularly proud of?

I really enjoy them all naturally but I am most proud of ‘Whispering light’, ‘Tulip’ and ‘The Kingdom’.

I love the imagery in your lyrics – especially in ‘Intelligentactile 101’ –the bit where you sing about borrowing someone’s bones and skin is so beautiful. How do you go about writing your lyrics? What comes first for you – the music or the lyrics?

They often times come together – words shape melodies and vice versa.

You’ve also done a version of your track ‘Murder of Birds’ with Guy Garvey of Elbow – how did you meet Guy and how did the collaboration come about?

I met Guy over the phone when he called me to do a phone interview for his Radio 6. I had missed his call twice. When he reached me finally on the third try I was in the bath. I did the interview whilst bathing!

You’ve had such an unusual upbringing – you were brought up Mormon and were pretty much cut off from most popular culture from a young age. What effect do you think that’s had on your music – do you think it’s made it purer in a way, more like traditional folk music?

I am still discovering music today….stuff that was wildly popular when I was growing up (unbeknownst to me). This element is enjoyable…I still have fresh ears. I’m not sure how it has affected my writing to be honest.

I try my best to sing from my original voice, the one that is uniquely mine.

How did you get into music when you were growing up – was there a particular experience or influence which kick-started your musical development?

My family. We sang together. We were our own choir – five kids and two parents singing in four-part harmonies – charming! Meeting my first true friend, Julie, at the age of 15, who introduced me to all sorts of music I had never heard of and blew my mind open!

You’ve had some unusual experiences in your life – you’ve been Tom Wait’s babysitter, you’ve volunteered at a rehabilitation centre for troubled kids (very nice of you!) and you’ve worked as a farmer and a surveyor. How did you finally settle on music as what you wanted to do with your life?

After months of being up in the mountains I realised that I was missing the stage. I had to find my way back to it. I was quite the rambler but I wanted to travel with a more substantial purpose….music is that purpose for me now.

Hard question: What are your top three albums of the decade and why?

Bon Iver – ‘For Emma’ because he came out with something gorgeous and truly genuine.

Elbow – ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ because I had life changing experiences touring with them on that record and that record for me holds memories of some of the best moments of my life.

M.I.A – ‘Kala’ – She is the most original female I have heard since Bjork

What are you planning to do over the festive season?

Rock!

Any exciting things planned for 2010?

Tours, writing. A trip to India. Releasing ‘Hunting My Dress’ in the states, Europe etc…lots of travel…buying a water treatment plant…

Album Review: The High Wire – The Sleep Tape

If you can’t think of a fate worse than ever having to sit through turgid stadium dwellers Coldplay’s eponymous ‘Yellow’ ever again, then the fact that blissed-out London-based band The High Wire have shared a stage with Chris Martin & Co may have you scrambling for skip button. However, put your fears aside – The High Wire’s effervescent debut is a woozy, delightfully drowsy affair sure to earn them a solid standing in the indie rock community. Chris has taste, it seems. Who would’ve guessed?

As far as obsolete genre names go, ‘Shoegaze’ is pretty useless, and it’s a tag that The High Wire has, unfortunately, been saddled with. Admittedly, ‘Shoegaze’ isn’t exactly in the same league as music journalism’s paeans of uselessness ‘shitgaze’ and ‘chillwave’, mind, but apart from alluding to an odd fascination with one’s footwear, it doesn’t exactly give the average music listener any clues as to what The High Wire actually sound like. So here’s a couple of reference points: their particular brand of sunshine-kissed guitar pop has far more in common with Beach House’s expansive dream-pop, or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s gently-soaring indie, than any kind of grimy, Neon Indian-esque bedroom experiment.

For a young band (they were only weeks old when Coldplay plucked them from the indie circuit and whisked them away on their UK tour) The High Wire are, surprisingly a perfect exercise in control and discipline – knowing just when to offset their soft-focus keyboard motifs with chiming guitar before it becomes all too saccharine, or just when to cut a spiralling strings solo short in order to maximise it’s inherent lushness – see achingly gorgeous instrumental ‘Honeycomb’, where it’s stellar combination of tumbling guitar, slowly blooming strings and pensive piano seems to know, instinctively, just when to fade out, leaving the listener gasping for more.

Or consider glorious single ‘Odds & Evens’ – there may be a considerable amount of somnambulant, synthy fug in there, but The High Wire have their melodies firmly rooted in pop – the gently insistent percussion and growling guitars quickly dispel any straying into dissonant wankery, letting the tightly braided beauty of the chorus shine through. Forget ‘Shoegaze’, this is pure, crystalline pop music – and bloody beautiful pop music at that.

To be honest, it’s hard to see how The High Wire fitted in at Coldplay’s live shows, really – Coldplay’s brash, blood-swollen, brand of stadium rock seems to leave no room for The High Wire’s whispred intimacies to shine – but, hopefully, The High Wire’s sparkling brand of indie-pop susurrus made an impression in it’s own, sleepy little way.

Album Review: Paperplain – Entering Pale Town

Today, whimsical female singer-songwriters are a dollar a dozen – a person can’t turn around without being assaulted by hordes of sweetly unassuming females, swathed in floral prints and brandishing guitars and gently-lilting ditties about cups of tea and bicycles – however, if you are going to devote your attention to just one folky female, it might as well be unfathomably precocious 19 year old Helen Page – aka Paperplain – who’s debut album ‘Entering Pale Town’ is as gently buoyant as her chosen alias.

Refreshingly enough, on ‘Entering Pale Town’, Helen makes no excuses for her fancifulness – she wears her cross-stitched heart on her cardigan sleeves, making ‘Entering Pale Town’s twee aesthetic so utterly absorbing, it’s impossible not to allow yourself to drift off into a sepia-tinted, pleasantly snug daydream – something akin to the centrespread of a Cath Kidston catalogue.

Sometimes this blissful state of torpidity works for Paperplain – ‘Rescue Boat’s gently-ebbing melody recalls an adolescent Kimya Dawson, minus her often devastating bouts of cynicism, or even Kate Nash, minus that supremely intolerable mockney drawl – however, Paperplain fares best when veering slightly out of her comfort zone – ‘Foreign Fingers’ sees Helen come across like Laura Marling dosed to the eyeballs with Prozac, lightly skimming the surface of a relationship fretted with all kinds of moral dilemmas – ‘I know that your girlfriend is home on her own/ But you’re not in the country so nobody knows/ We’ve had nine or ten now so don’t close your eyes/ But I’m not sure we’ll sleep great with a whole stream of lies’. She even swaps the infernal cups of tea for gin, ye gads.

In the end, ‘Entering Pale Town’s eventual downfall is its ceaseless vagueness – Paperplain seems incapable of making a statement without wrapping it in dulling, cotton-wool swathes of gaucheness – and it’s this lack of lyrical assertiveness that renders ‘Entering Pale Town’ merely pleasant, rather than genuinely affecting. However, it’d be foolish to write off a debut that is, all things consider, still a solid achievement for one so young – and it’s more than likely that in a few short years, Helen will return with an album that will pierce through the heart, rather than drifting, inoffensively, in one ear and out the other.

Interview: The High Wire

(Posted at NeverEnoughNotes.co.uk)

Bonjour! Where are you guys at the minute?
One in Kings Cross, one in Hammersmith and one in Chalk Farm. In the rain.

How did The High Wire come together?
I made a mini album under the name The High Wire, which was called ‘Ahead of the Rain’. That album’s producer Julian Simmons introduced me to Stuart and we started writing together. Then we pretty much stole Lex from another band to play keyboards for us.

Were there any particular artists or albums that influenced you when you were growing up?
Growing up it was probably West Coast harmony bands like The Byrds, Crosby Stills and Nash, Mamas and Papas etc that I heard at home. The albums that influenced The Sleep Tape the most are perhaps ‘Grand Prix’ by Teenage Fanclub, ‘Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’ by Spiritualized and ‘Tonight’s The Night’ by Neil Young.

Your debut album ‘The Sleep Tape’ is coming out in March – what can we expect from it?
Pop songs, instrumentals, folk, country, indie, harmonies, guitars, keyboards, strings, drums. Mixed together.

How did you come up with the name ‘The Sleep Tape’ – does it refer to your music’s calming nature?
The name came from a line in book I was reading at the time called ‘Slow Chocolate Autopsy’ by Iain Sinclair and Dave McKean. It seemed to be a good description of the record we were making.

Do you have a particular favourite song from the album?
I like Stuart’s tracks ‘Honeycomb’ and ‘Pump Your Little Heart’. ‘Honeycomb’ because it’s just a beautiful arrangement (he had it as a track he was going to put vocals on, but I fell in love with it as an instrumental) and ‘Pump Your Little Heart’ because it’s so shamelessly emotional.

Will you be touring the album (especially in the UK)?
Yes, but I don’t know the dates yet.

I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about Coldplay, but you’ve supported Coldplay at their UK Dates – how was it, making the transition from playing tiny venues to these massive, crazy arenas like the 02?
I don’t mind hearing about Coldplay at all, they were amazingly kind to us and their live show is genuinely stunning. After eventually being persuaded to do it (I said no at first), we just felt that if you are going to get all nervous about having get up and play in front of people, it might as well be a lot of people.

Did you have a particular favourite gig moment touring with Coldplay?
We played the O2 in Dublin just a couple of days before Christmas. It was the most amazing gig atmosphere I’ve ever witnessed.

How does it feel knowing that you’ve followed in the illustrious footsteps of the likes of Mercury Rev, Bat For Lashes, Jay-Z and (bizarrely) Girls Aloud?
That’s not how I’ve ever thought of it. I like Girls Aloud.

I read an interview with you guys in Amelia’s Magazine, and you’ve expressed a pretty strong dislike of the ‘shoegaze’ title – do you feel this title limits you as a band?
We don’t mind the shoegaze tag, that’s going to keep coming up and, although I don’t think we sound anything like My Bloody Valentine on this record, I do like some of those bands who were originally given that description in the 90s. I think we were saying we didn’t like being described as mellow, but that’s our own fault because our recordings always tend to come out less heavy than intended.

Would you care to suggest a new definition for your music?
It’s amazing to have people want to write about us, so I really am fine taking whatever we’re given.

Shoegaze or not, ‘Odds & Evens’ has a really, properly beautiful lush feel to it. It’s a seriously great track, you should be immensely proud of it! How do you go about producing your music?
Stuart does all the technical stuff and I make annoying suggestions. And tea.

And finally – it may be a little late in the year for this, but I always love people’s answers to this question – what are your top three albums of the decade?
The first ones that come to mind, not in any order, are… Bjork ‘Vespertine’, Wilco ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’, Elliott Smith ‘From A Basement On The Hill’.

Single Review: White Rabbits – Percussion Gun

(Posted at NeverEnoughNotes.co.uk)

Judging by the increasingly ridiculous series of analogies that have been making up the New York five piece White Rabbits reviews lately (‘Imagine the love-child of James Mercer and Matt Berninger in bed with Ezra Kroenig crossed with Cold War Kids in a lift with Spoon performing covers of Belle & Sebastian while jamming with Arcade Fire…’), their latest single, ‘Percussion Gun, could have gone one of two ways – it could have been an unfortunate, deformed inbred child, with six fingers, eight toes and a regrettable surplus of limbs, or it could have been a glossy, sleekly formulaic affair, like a perfectly bred racehorse or red setter – and luckily for White Rabbits, ‘Percussion Gun’ falls squarely into the latter category…

Read the rest at Never Enough Notes

Adelaide’s Cape Dates

Adelaide’s Cape is the solo project of London-based folk musician Sam Taylor – imagine a more up-beat Justin Vernon, or a less frantic,  stripped-down Johnny Flynn and you’ve hit the nail right on the head.

It’s seriously lovely stuff, and luckily enough, he’ll be setting out on a UK Tour with the incredibly wicked, Music Box interviewee Alessi’s Ark, and the lovely First Aid Kit sisters, who’s stunning debut album I have raved about – so you’d be a bit of an idiot not to catch him with Alessi or First Aid Kit at any of this big ol’ list of dates here:

With Alessi’s Ark/ Rachel Dadd/First Aid Kit

• 6 Feb                Union Chapel, London
• 10 Feb              Moles Club, Bath
• 12 Feb              Cube Cinema, Bristol
• 14 Feb              The Portland Arms, Cambridge
• 18 Feb              The Birdcage, Norwich
• 20 Feb              The Hope, Brighton
• 21 Feb              Nation of Shopkeepers, Leeds
• 22 Feb              Bungalows and Bears, Sheffield
• 24 Feb              The Basement, York
• 28 Feb              Hamptons Bar, Southampton
• 2 Mar                Norwich Arts Center, Norwich
• 7 Mar                Hampton’s Bar, Southampton

His debut EP, ‘Last Sleep In Albion’ (complete with pretty cover art) will be released on the 8th of March, however you can pre-order it and get more info HERE

Album Review: First Aid Kit – The Big Black & The Blue

(Published at Earhorn.co.uk)

Kids get a bad rap these days. We’re not all pill-popping, good-for-nothing Skins extras, with loose lifestyles and even looser morals. Some of us are pretty sensible, really – and opposing this dubious repute are Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna (respectively 16 and 19) – who are currently purveying some of the most gloriously earthy folk around. The pair broke onto the folk scene with rare confidence after their arresting cover of Fleet Foxes’ ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’ became a YouTube hit– and the subsequent EP was equally as lauded, with critics universally stunned into an enthralled, disparagement-free silence by the sisters’s folk-canvassed, Conor Oberst reminiscent intimacy – a rare occasion indeed.

However, ‘The Big Black & The Blue’ heralds the sister’s steadily-growing maturity – ‘I wish I could believe in something bigger, more than these trees, these winds, these oceans’ Klara sighs on ‘Heavy Storm’, and indeed ‘The Big Black & The Blue’ seems to be a kind of departure for the sisters – gone are the ‘Drunken Trees’ era gently pastoral ruminations on magic forests and tangerines; ‘The Big Black & The Blue’ chooses to focus on – what else?- love.

The sister’s increasing development is even reflected in their cover art – while ‘Drunken Trees’ depicts a menagerie of zoo animals enjoying a train ride, as apparently illustrated by a particularly overzealous toddler and a paint set – but the cover of ‘The Big Black & The Blue’ is adorned by a gloomy cherub, wielding a lute and gazing moodily into the middle distance, while a full moon looms eerily behind her, suspended in the grey sky.

However, ‘The Big Black & The Blue’ is much more than a blessed hour-long sulk – it’s a gently cathartic affair, as though the girls are coming around, bleary-eyed, from that torturous, post-failed relationship twilight zone, where the fog is just beginning to disperse, and you can finally begin to regain some sense of clarity. Indeed, the sister’s incessant quest for closure makes them seem more than slightly like the female, adolescent version of High Fidelity’s Rob Gordon, minus his trademark, emotionally-crippling acrimony – ‘Heavy Storm’ sees the sisters stumbling precariously over the rubbles of a disintegrated relationship – ‘I wish that I could have known back then/ What we all know now/ That we’re never going back to those times’.

However, the First Aid Kit sisters aren’t as frighteningly precocious as they may appear on first listen – the sumptuous, auto-harp laden ‘Sailor Song’– bar the oblique nautical references – depicts a situation every teenager throughout the course history has gone through at some point in their lives: see if Klara’s cries of ‘I’ll wait for you in the harbour/ Oh little silly me!/ The sailors set sail in the morning/ I’ll be waiting for you all night/ The ship sets up in the morning/ I’ll be waiting for you all right…’ doesn’t conjure up images of your own lovelorn adolescence, waiting by your iphone/telephone/fax machine/carrier pigeon (delete as age-appropriate) for the object of your desires to pay some kind of heed to you – however, there’s a healthy dose of cynicism shot into the sisters naïve romanticism – Klara’s mournful yowl in ‘Sailor Song’ seems to elongate into a derisive chuckle at her own lovesick naivety, and it’s impossible not to visualise Klara’s knowing smirk in ‘I Met Up With A King’, as her male protagonist spins such time-honoured chestnuts as ‘Don’t think less of me, I’m still the same man I used to be’.

However, this certainly wouldn’t be a First Aid Kit review without mentioning the sister’s voices – Johanna and Klara are in possession of voices of not only jaw-dropping strength and clarity, but of glorious, endlessly refracting symmetry that only similarly talented siblings (Note TALENTED, Jedward) can possibly dream of achieving. Klara’s voice in particular bears remarkable similarity to fellow youthful folkstress Laura Marling’s – peel back it’s exterior, accented wanness and Klara’s voice holds an incredible range of depths and breadths – however, the sum of the sister’s voices is certainly greater than their parts – their flawlessly proportioned harmonies are best displayed on the austere ‘In The Morning’, where the sister’s ornate instrumentation is stripped back, allowing the sisters voices to more than make up for it in sinuous, gracefully undulating harmonies – each of Klara’s full-throated, expansive mewls is perfectly refracted by Johanna’s sonorous, soothing murmurs.

Overall, the First Aid Kit’s debut album is a prime exercise in never judging a book by it’s cover – allow yourself to be submerged into First Aid Kit’s lush world of sailing ships, selfless kings and boys playing guitars under the stars, and the binge-drinking, drugged-up teens of today will become but a distant, unpleasant memory.