Review Summary: An excellent set of energetic and lyrically strong songs, First Aid Kit is a refreshing burst of manic guitar, frantic drumming and chanted vocals that should get even the most jaded of rock fans nodding their heads. Just ignore some of the slower songs.
First Aid Kit is Finnish quartet Disco Ensemble's second album and their first to become internationally successful after tracks featured on video game NHL 08 and leading to heavy touring internationally and a deal with Universal Music. The name is slightly misleading as rather than being an album full of dancefloor fillers First Aid Kit is a hard rock album in similar vein to fellow Scandinavian rockers, The Hives with a bit of Refused's punk sound.
The comparison isn't just geographic as Disco Ensemble's main distinguishing element from the crowd of post-hardcore/emo/whatever bands is the frantic energy and catchiness in many of their songs that The Hives also bring (they also share a producer). First song 'This Is My Head Exploding' fully shows this as it starts off with some speedy guitar and quickly erupts into a full out blitz of raspy vocals and slightly manic lyrics (This is my head exploding from the weight of thoughts inside/these are my thoughts escaping through the ventilation shaft). This energy is retained throughout the early part of the album with We Might Fall Apart adding a helping of synthesizer and more powerful lyrical images while Drop Dead Casanova is a furious rant as the singer repeatedly screams 'drop dead'.
The next two songs Human Cannonball and Black Euro are comparatively slower though they're by no means slow ballads. Human Cannonball shows the main singer's skills as he goes it alone without the guitar for a little in a section just made for live sing-alongs before again launching into the guitar. Black Euro meanwhile is possibly the catchiest song of the whole album, an anthem of chanted vocals and 'woahs' that would be great live and should have you singing along wherever you are as the singer belts out 'Can you hear the seductive silence/Can you hear the atonal anthem?'. The next song, the title track IS a bit more of a slow ballad and it's kind of a mixed bag. While some of the imagery in the lyrics is strong some of it is just awfully cliched (is there an emo band in the world that hasn't sung about car crashes?).
Luckily things get better with the next song, which is for me the best on the album, Fresh New Blood. Going back to the chanted and screamed vocals of Black Euro but doing it at more speed, this is a great distillation of what's best with the band. The lyrics 'This one goes for the fresh new blood, yeah/This one's not for the faint at heart, yeah' sum it up perfectly, it's a song for everyone to mosh to and its backed up perfectly with some speedy drum rolls. The song after it 'See if I Care' is actually similar to the distinctly average title track but does it much better. It's slower and the singer takes centre stage to the instruments but the despondent edge (Blow up the world/See if I care/Leave us to burn/See if I care) works a lot better this time round with the addition of some much better lyrics and some more agression.
For the last three songs things get shaken up a bit and it doesn't come out quite as well. 'So Long, My Sisters' is the typical escaping town song and is done well but it seems to lose some of the zest of the earlier songs which is a bit odd considering the subject of the song and it comes out a bit flat. 'You Are the Dawn' is altogether more interesting, a love song with a bit of a darker edge but it's let down by some sub par lyrics (But I can feel you/ On the Richter scale). 'Sleep On The Wheel' combines the love song and escaping town themes and it comes out better than either of the preceding songs with a strong atmosphere and it finishes with a thunderous burst of sound.
Disco Ensemble may not be a band likely to be played in the nightclubs and discos but they have the same kind of energy that makes you want to move and this album showcases that energy perfectly. Unfortunately they haven't quite mastered slowing themselves down, meaning the first part of this album is by far the best and means that if you happen to not like their sound there's not much to interest you. But to be honest there's no reason for any rock fan looking for something to wake them up in the morning not to like Disco Ensemble as they have a perfect mix of catchiness and hard rock.
