First Aid Kit: The Lion's Roar

Label: Wichita

Ladies, hide your boyfriends: First Aid Kit are a pair of young Swedish sisters who comfortably inhabit the best folk-pop traditions, from clothes to sound, and their second album, The Lion's Roar (following an overlooked 2010 debut) is fierce and pretty. The Söderberg sisters -- Klara does more of the leads and guitar, while Johanna handles keys and autoharp, and provides that close-harmony backing -- show their range in the first two songs: The title track builds from a simple acoustic strum into a rollicking folk-rock jam, edged with minor-key (a.k.a. heart-aching) melodies. The following "Emmylou," as you'd surmise from the title, skips along in a country-pop reverie. Most of what follows mixes and matches from that span of sources: The twangy "This Old Routine" has nifty pedal-steel and mandolin accompaniment from producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes), while "New Year's Eve" strips away most of the instruments, leaving a poetically scraped autoharp to accompany those voices, which soar with frayed burrs. Do check it out!