Live music - First Aid Kit

Olympia, Dublin 4/5

When folk duo First Aid Kit broke through with the 2012 album The Lion’s Roar, their updating of the baroque country rock of Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris was so artful and emotive, it was assumed they hailed from somewhere deep in heartland USA. In fact, the sisters, barely out of school, had grown up in suburban Sweden and, at the time, scarcely set foot in the United States. Their richly twanging American accents were a product of their education at an English language school in Stockholm.

This led to predictable griping about authenticity — a complaint Johanna and Klara Söderberg nonchalantly blew out of the water, first with the Lion’s Roar, now with follow-up LP Stay Gold (the title a line from Robert Frost). On both collections they sing their sorrows out with poise and underplayed vehemence, splicing the soulful sadness of their idols (one song is named for Emmylou Harris) with a hearty serving of ‘Gen Yennui’. If you can get past the idea of two 20-nothing sisters from Sweden channelling Appalachian ennui there is much to savour.