First Aid Kit review, Albert Hall, Manchester: More like a bona fide rock’n’roll outfit than ever

Stockholm's Soderberg sisters lead the band through a storming performance (Andrew Benge/Redferns)

There’s a sense of homecoming about this two-night stand in Manchester for First Aid Kit.

It should, by rights, be a painful one, too. Klara Soderberg, the younger of the two Stockholm sisters, lived here for a couple of years while she was engaged to a local musician and it was the collapse of that relationship that inspired January’s Ruins, the band’s fourth LP.

Much tends to be made of the duo’s precociousness – older sibling Johanna is still only 27, despite the pair being a decade into their career – but age is clearly no barrier to heartbreak on the basis of Ruins, on which the standouts were swooning ballads scored through with nervous uncertainty – “Postcard” and “Fireworks” are a couple of cases in point.

Anybody who caught any one of the band’s previous five sold-out shows in the city, though, will know that they’re a different proposition entirely on stage. Fleshed out to a five-piece and with Johanna swapping keyboards for bass duties, stormy opener “Rebel Heart” has them sounding more like a bona fide rock’n’roll outfit than ever before.

The real tone, though, is set by recent single “It’s a Shame”, which fizzes with a playful energy that’s in evidence all night. There’s an old adage about the making of a record being the hard work and the touring of it being the reward and if Klara had to put herself through the emotional wringer to produce Ruins, tonight feels like a celebration of having moved past a particularly turbulent period.

Not that there isn’t room for the striking of a serious note, though; last year’s one-off single “You Are the Problem Here”, which has the sisters viciously lashing out against misogyny, has taken on a new relevance in the months since its release and after rattling through a particularly incendiary take on it here, Klara urges the men in the audience to heed its message; “call your friends out on their sexist jokes.”

It’s tracks like that one that rendered Ruins a little bit of a disappointment in terms of how musically safe the duo chose to play it; when that single and an irresistibly fun cover of Heart’s “Crazy on You” provide tonight’s real highlights, you wonder why they keep that side of themselves under lock and key in the studio. Perhaps there’ll be room for something more upbeat on the next LP; until then, it’s impressive enough that First Aid Kit returned in such jubilant mood to the city that was the backdrop to their latest album’s heartache.