Album Review: First Aid Kit - Ruins

Swedish sister act First Aid Kit return this month with their fourth album. Although already commanding a huge fanbase, there's a level of accessibility about this record that signals broader appeal.

Ruins, as the title suggests is strewn with heartache and broken dreams. It's an aching breakup that tugs at the heartstrings, but this album also comes with hopelessly romantic professions of love. All this lyrical bittersweetness is situated in the sisters' predilection for folksy Americana, strung out on the blues and resplendent with subtle orchestral adornment.

The first half of this album ambles through sad reflections on life, but after the romance of My Wild Sweet Love these girls - with their penchant for Emmylou Harris and ABBA-esque harmonies - sink their teeth into powerful breakup songs. The hurt of Distant Star and Ruins is self-evident as relationships are dismantled.

These songs are eclipsed by the boozy, rootsy swirl of Hem Of Her Dress, which unexpectedly blows out with a Mexican horn band playing a celebratory funeral march. It's here that the emotion starts to flow freely into the sobering-but-hauntingly powerful Nothing Has To Be True, which delivers an emotional crescendo that brings all this heartache to a proper end.