The Big Black & the Blue is the first studio album by Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 duo First Aid Kit

First Aid Kit (band)

First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo composed of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, whose close vocal harmonies and woodsy, folk-influenced songwriting take influence from the likes of Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom. Hailing from Enskede, a southern suburb of Stockholm, the teenaged siblings...

. It was released on January 25, 2010 in the UK via Wichita Recordings, followed by a US release on May 25, 2010.

Track listing

All tracks written by Klara and Johanna Söderberg.

Reception

The Big Black & The Blue received a largely positive reception from music journalists.

NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

awarded the album a score of 8/10, highlighting the band's "phenomenal way with gorgeous melodies and heart-melting harmonies", while Clash

Clash (magazine)

Clash is a popular music and fashion magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its magazine title is published 12 times a year. It has a circulation of around 40,000....

wrote that "the lyrics remain to stand out behind the relaxing tempo and give edge to their songs...which makes the whole experience magical". As with Drunken Trees

Drunken Trees (EP)

Drunken Trees is the debut release by Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit. It was released on April 9, 2008 in Sweden via Rabid Records, followed by a UK release via Wichita Records on February 23, 2009...

, however, some critics offered more reserved praise: Drowned in Sound

Drowned in Sound

DrownedinSound.com or DiS is a UK based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway . The site is an editorially independent music website.-History:...

gave the album a score of 6/10, writing that "while there are tracks of beauty and wonder, there are duller moments too, where the history that First Aid Kit derive their music from overwhelms their songs, reminding us always of what came before.". The BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, while praising the album as a whole, also expressed reservations, noting that "songs are, at times, little more than sketches...there’s only ever one element that’s properly illuminated: the vocals."

As of November 2, 2011, the album holds an aggregate score of 70/100 on Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

.

Credits

• Klara and Johanna Söderberg - production, vocals, instrumentation, mixing (tracks 1, 3-12), design & artwork
• Charlie Smoliansky - drums (tracks 1, 3, 5, 8, 10)
• Benkt Söderberg - mixing (tracks 1, 3-12)
• Johan Gustavsson - mixing (track 2)
• Erik Broheden - mastering (tracks 1-11)
• Henrik Jonsson - mastering (track 12)