First Aid Kit

There's a line in the title track of Ruins that is the most direct the Söderberg sisters have ever been. “I lost you, didn't I?” asks Klara Söderberg. “But first I think I lost myself.” The whole album will take you back to the first time your veins were squeezed to the point of suffocation by that first heartache – the one that left you anchorless, questioning your purpose, your world, yourself.

Rebel Heart – the album’s opener – documents a love doomed from the start. It's A Shame – the lead single – is a plea to live in the moment because everyone disposes of each other eventually. On Postcard and To Live A Life you feel the breath-stealing weight of despair when a shattered love leaves you bereft of hope. Fireworks introverts the blame with self-loathing. Overall, it's a nod to the traditions of the classic folk rock sound, a sound First Aid Kit have revived via their breakthrough album Stay Gold (2014) and previous Wichita releases The Big Black And The Blue (2010) and The Lion's Roar (2012). The difference is that this time they've lived. The results are intense. No longer in thrall to their forebears, they now channel the hurt and longing felt in their heroes' works – Gram Parsons, Townes Van Zandt, Johnny and June. Long gone are the days of covering Fleet Foxes and singing fairytales, of leaving school to pursue music, emerging in flannel from tall tree’d forests. Here is First Aid Kit as you've never heard them before: wounded and biting back hard.

Support from The Staves.