“The vibe we’re going for is that Polaroid, analog look,” explains 21-year-old Johanna Söderberg, who, along with her younger sister Klara, is one half of Swedish nu-folk duo First Aid Kit. “We love the feel of seventies art and photography. Just anything old looking.”
To fans of the pair’s full-length debut, 2010’s The Big Black & the Blue, this should come as no surprise. Filled with wistful acoustic ballads, it paints a picture of laid-back pastoral whimsy and has the two most important hallmarks of any jaunt into seventies-inspired folk: nimble finger-picking and watertight harmonies. Not to mention the kind of delivery that gives every lyric a Southern twang and trademark Joan Baez–vocal quiver.
However, for their sophomore record The Lion’s Roar, which will be released in January, the Söderbergs say they wanted to do something with a little more bite, if you’ll excuse the pun.
Certainly from the look of the title track’s video, unveiled last week, it’s clear they’re eyeing darker territory—instead of taking sun-kissed walks through barley fields in matching white dresses (as they did in “Ghost Town,” their last outing with director and fellow Swede Mats Udd) they can be seen traipsing through one of Sweden’s national forests in what looks like a Druid funeral procession.
“In terms of lyrics and instrumentation it’s probably one of the darkest songs we’ve ever written,” Johanna says from Los Angeles, the day before they were to leave to shoot another video in Joshua Tree National Park (although, for fear she’ll spoil the surprise, she refuses to reveal any more than that.)
“We recorded the last album at home in Johanna’s bedroom,” Klara continues, “so having a string quartet wasn’t really possible. Now we can build the wall of sound we were always looking for.”
As you’d imagine, the duo have never been afraid of citing their American influences (“We never listened to much Swedish folk music,” Johanna adds. “We preferred people like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joni Mitchell”), but their homeland did offer some inspiration for this latest album, mostly fueling a new fascination with the dark and gloomy.
“Our parents used to read us stories about trolls when we were growing up,” Johanna explains. “We like that kind of spooky, unreal, magical feeling of Swedish folklore.”
WATCH: “The Lion’s Roar” by First Aid Kit