First Aid Kit Meets Self-Possession and Security on Palomino
Written by Ashley Gallegos
Graphic by Rebekah Witt
In Palomino, sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg enter with the readiness we all dream of. It’s full of the sort of reflection that leaves you with your mouth agape, being so drawn to the notion of telling such specific truths. You can’t help but be carried by the feelings in which they’re singing about. Familiar to listeners or not, they sing about it all with the cadence of people who are devoid of any bit of regret.
On the first track “Out Of My Head,” they pick you up and lead you into the stream they’re singing about, as listeners act as the beggar on their knees before being fully released into the stream deep of assurance. A stream where for the rest of the album, you learn to live alongside them. “Angel,” “Ready to Run,” and “Turning Onto You” are full of the heavy but necessary reflection that comes with these truths and the growth. Whether they’re lifted by keys reminiscent of a ballad we’ve known forever but are always thrilled to come across, or sweet vocalizations that sneakily lead you into a corner of unwavering declarations and affirmations, these are part of the space in which they now hover in—space only a few people know. All of it is sung with the conviction of someone secure in their desires and feelings. How the other feels doesn’t matter at this point because self-possession and reliance is taking its turn and weave smoothly throughout the rest of the album.
“Fallen Snow” is an interesting point; here is when the specificity in the lyrics unfolds itself as one does in the connections they’re singing about, taking in everything as subtle as the sorrow in someone’s gaze. This is where the album starts turning in a direction different from the first half. It does this without steering from what is still at the core: nothing hushed, intolerance for the quietness of feelings in this song and any song on this album. This is part of what makes it so hard-hitting; it starts molding itself into what it needs to be. One of the strongest lyrics that rings a glass in your face is ‘Where do you go to when you look past me? Do you see yourself, miserable and free, such a strange notion to see you clearly when love’s shadow stood up and left the room’ from “Wild Horses II.” It’s about a reciprocation that’s been lost but seemingly mutual, yet it breaks through more aggressively than most other lyrics.
Songs on the cusp of the end, “The Last One” and “Nobody Knows” hold and shake you, seething with the punch of how magnified the feelings seem to be. Despite this, they find ways to allow you to remain afloat. Drums bring you back up in “Nobody Knows,” as if it all served as a cautionary tale as it makes its way to deliver you to the end point of the stream.
Final songs like “A Feeling That Never Came,” “29 Palms Highway,” and “Palomino” serve as the lightness, haziness, and airiness that plants itself into the space. You’ve been released now, and the demand and ferocity of lyrics like “It’s all a shifting perspective. A different point of view, can still rewrite the story if I wanted to” and “I’ve been dragging your ghost around” are testimony to the space.
Palomino is an album that devolves into a demanding stream of both sweet and harsh truths, lost feelings, and sentiments guided by delicate vocal delivery and humility, the cadence of two people who are in charge now. Something to highlight and love so much about this one is that there’s not much levity. Candor is never lost on them, there is no shying away or masquerading of the feelings or sentiments at hand. They’ve mastered the art of harmonies and melodies, and with Palomino, they’re in front of listeners with the self-possession and security that not everyone knows the language of.