First Aid Kit - The Big Black and The Blue (2010)

Earlier this week I mentioned the the release of First Aid Kit's debut album The Big Black and the Blue.

The album starter "In the Morning" sets the tone of the album demonstrating what the sisters are best know for: their stunning vocal harmonies. Short and somber, it features the sisters largely unaccompanied for the majority before the entrance ominous beat-keeping drum beat and repetitive twangy guitar riff that instead of distracting only augments the girls' intensity. The lead track also sets up a reoccuring water motif opening with the sisters captivating vocals narrating a trek across the wilds to dispose of a wedding ring into the sea ultimately resulting in a grim watery death. Following is "Hard Believer", detailing a religious arguement in an almost surprisingly upbeat manner especially considering lyrics like "Love is tough, time is rough on me" before reaching a triumphant climax with the duo belting: "And it's one life, and this life, and it's beautiful". "Sailor Song" begins with solo vocals with a gently strumming autoharp that helps to accent the words of the songstress/narrator before the song picks up into a hoedown-like energy and the song's plot slowly unravels. Initially the intro hints at a dark fate with the foreshadowing: "I was out on the porch, and now I'm ready for my doom". This song are so important the lyrics are to understanding the song's content because the overall cheerful, happy tone that belies the song's actual nature. Also returning is the water motif; the story about a sailor and his significant other who waits for him to return. "Waltz for Richard" maintains the dismal mood of the album, telling of a couple's last visit to the coast to watch bosts on the ocean together before being split up.

"Heavy Storm" opens up with lamentatious "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 describes the change that society has had on the song's various characters who move away, settle down, and ultimate lose old characteristics. The song provides a sort of social commentary with the characters living in peace with nature, playing shabby instuments but not caring, and singing songs praising their loved ones and nature before moving away to the big city and completely phasing out these aspects of themselves. The narrator(s) constantly wish throughout that they could return to far gone days before giving up and resigning to the fate that those far gone times are gone forever. "Ghost Town" enters with a organ and piano intro that provides a stark contrast to the guitar-centric album so far before the guitar and vocals enter to give a balladic account of a lover overwhelmed by their personal demons and a troubled past that ultimately lead to missed opportunity and longing. Whereas the last song saw the triumph of negativity, "Josefin" can be seen as a representing the overcoming of this struggle and becoming better through facing these challenges. "A Window Opens" sees the return of the darker feel. The narrator hoping that leaving will help give them clarity and understanding before ultimately deciding against it and opting instead to return. "Winter Is All Over You" is a slow moving but gripping narrative that portrays a character going off and dying in a war and the feelings of those left behind best illustrated by the sorrowful and almost rageful: "I saw your mother at the department store she looked as innocent like a stillborn/But all I could think about was the sting". "I Met Up With A King" sees the possible re-emergence of the religious themes encountered earlier in the album featuring a conversation between the narrator and dying, rotting "king" (possibly Jesus?) as well as girl used only for body by a young man who takes everything from her and has a total disregard for her mind (a prostitute reference perhaps?). Maybe it's a reference to Parzival? The rotting king being the Fisher king and the girl being...well any girl in medieval literature actually. There's several possible interpretations of this song and that is what is so good about it. The earlier argument against religious validation and the way the girls growl on "Well thank God" kind of shuts down the religious reference but who knows? Last track on the album "Will Of the River" rounds out the album, spicing up the simple guitar and vocals with flutes. The song, full of nature imagery, asks a very Hamlet-esque question of whether "to rest upon forever or to live for one more day" before the storyteller resolves to pick themselves up and go make a home somewhere. The song ends the album perfectly, fading in the same silence from which the album began.

Something I found interesting was the albums way of functioning as a storybook. Each song has it's own story with connecting themes of either the ocean, regret, despair, or sometimes death. The songs could function as a series of vignettes or you can put them all together to get a greater story. Also of note is the use of language in the songwriting. Several wonderful little words and sayings are slipped in in a way that doesn't draw any attention to thems and the listener would probably miss if they weren't paying attention. The songs themselves contain certain hints to their central plot but leave much to the imagination of the listen, much like a well-written piece of fiction. The album itself flows seemlessly with each track aiding to create an overall mood but retaining their own individuality and charm.

I mentioned the ambiguity and variety of interpretation for First Aid Kit's second single "I Met Up With A King", listen/watch and decide for yourself: