I’d like to think I have a fairly broad music taste. (I am a music critic after all, give me some credit please!) However, one of the genres I cannot stand and do not have any time for is so-called ‘country’ music. It’s the perfect example of a stagnant genre: tired in every way, musically and lyrically. The idea of ‘heartbreak’ in a country song has hung around for so long that it’s long since moved past being cliché. This is why, when I read about First Aid kit’s second album being ‘country-tinged’, I had to stop and check if I was fine with that. Turns out I was; I’d  loved their debut album, 2010’s The Big Black and the Blue, so I figured nothing bad could come out of such a description.

How right I was. The idea of something being ‘country-tinged’ puts most people on their guard anyway, but regardless of its influences, it is unquestionably a contender for most beautiful album of 2012, and we’re scarcely two weeks in. The fact that it namechecks some genuinely great country songwriters on second track Emmylou (named for Emmylou Harris and referencing Judith ‘Juice’ Newton, Gram Parsons and Johnny Cash) as well as having that song touch on all the staples of a country song right down to the use of a damned slide guitar doesn’t take anything away from it. It’s one of the high points on a record that is truly special.

Kicking off with the title track, a five-minute journey that does a very good job of summing up what the album is about, its windswept arrangement and jaw-dropping climax signalling that it is only the tip of the iceberg – seriously, that was a brave move; if I had been sequencing this record I would have suggested they close with it, because with most other bands it would be extremely difficult to follow – The Lion’s Roar is filled with naked honesty and intimacy, and it’s quite an impressive feat for an album like this to sound intimate even when it is at its most raucous, like on the joyful (actual) closer King of the World, which contains my favourite set of lyrics from the year so far: ‘I’ve seen everything I ever want to see / Screaming “FIRE!” in a theatre of people taking their seats’.

Its massively uplifting finale is a well-deserved payoff after an album that deals with plenty of darkness. Blue matches an optimistic, xylophone-featuring melody with a set of despairing lyrics, telling the story of someone who has given up on love and life, and who sees ‘a stranger in the mirror’: ‘The only man you ever loved, who you thought was gonna marry you, died in a car accident when he was only 22; then you just decided love wasn’t for you, and every year since then, that’s proven to be true.’ Such sentiments are already hard-hitting enough, but the harmonies that Johanna and Klara Söderberg employ to express them increase their impact ten-fold.

Those harmonies. I don’t want to say they’re the band’s defining feature, because The Lion’s Roar is musically accomplished enough to draw attention away from the sisters’ voices, but every so often – actually, scratch that, there’s a ‘moment’ in every song – you’re reminded just how much of a difference they make, such as on sprawling album centrepiece To A Poet (which I think should be a single at some point; it’s certainly immediate enough), and penultimate track New Year’s Eve – which is also the point at which optimism begins to make itself known on the album, leading wonderfully into the aforementioned King of the World and bringing the album to an extremely satisfying finish.

First Aid Kit’s second album is magnificent. Again, far be it from me to suggest that it leaves their debut in the shade – The Big Black and the Blue still holds up very well, even two years on  – but they’ve come on so much since then that it’s hard not to feel that way at times. It relies on contrast and is quite a dark album, despite what it sounds like, but there is beauty to be found in every moment. At 21 and 18 years of age, respectively, Johanna and Klara are still young, but have produced something that displays wisdom and talent far beyond their years.

The Lion’s Roar is released on January 23rd through Wichita.
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